Wells was way above James in quality, prolific output and wide ranging genres, from sci-fi to history, fiction and social reform - his life story is worth studying carefully. His work even led towards the atomic bomb and statute of human rights.
Dream boldly and build responsibly - https://onepercentrule.substack.com/p/hg-wells-dream-boldly-...
I don't know that I would agree he is above James in "quality." Wells was of course great, but he also put out a lot of trash. James may have been the more limited of the two in tone, topic, and social politics, but his work is of a different caliber in terms of prose, complexity, and coherence.
Noted - like most writers his taste is not for everyone. There are a number of very detailed critiques of James, from his uncouthness to his "rangy, convoluted sentences that bear so unmistakably the hallmark of James".
> Wells was way above James in quality
In all of my twelve years on this godforsaken site, i had never had the displeasure of reading something more wrong; it actually transcends being wrong and, as Pauli would put it, it's not even wrong.
It's not even a pair of authors I'd have considered comparing in a "who's higher-quality" way. It's like comparing Spielberg and Aronofsky or something, as one being "way above" the other "in quality". I dunno, man... maybe? But I dunno. Pretty sure you can make it look like either one's way better than the other by picking your framing of "best", and in several different ways.
I may see it, but perhaps a more descriptive opinion of yours backed up with actual shades from your own viewpoint will provide a better trust with your comment. Sure, sometimes words cannot explain a thought, but effort may at least spread a few light rays on it supporting during discoveries. What do you think? Why do you, personally, disagree with someone's else opinion highlighting the whole 12 years of your experience of communication...
I get what you're doing but I don't find this a fair caricature of james' writing style
> In all of my twelve years on this godforsaken site, i had never had the displeasure of reading something more wrong
Perhaps you've simply forgotten the occasional comments that praise putting pineapple onto pizza?
No matter of literary opinion can plumb those same depths of evil most foul.
In particular, his _Outline of History_ is well worth reading for its examination of how the commons (in terms of common pastural areas and so forth shared by a community) were eroded away by the newfangled notion of individual property.
It's on Project Gutenberge, and the Librivox recording may be workable depending on your tolerance for voices and background noise.
Though it's worth noting that the authorship of that text is challenged/potentially problematic --- look up Florence Deeks' copyright challenge.
He also wrote a fascinating biology textbook (“The Science of Life”, with two co-authors) and a book about the economy entitled “The Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind”. His nonfiction work deserves as much attention as his fiction, it is excellent.
>eroded away by the newfangled notion of individual property
so, I haven't read it, but you can't be describing it right. What preceded individual property was "the king owns all of it, and he apportions it by favor to various earls"
It was more complicated than that, and people lived off the difference. The "king" cared about 'the big stuff', and cared little about low-value land that wouldn't produce reliable taxable yields. In particular, villages often had a commons area of land ill-suited for farming, which was used for grazing/as pasture, and the village council would allow the village people to let some of their animals graze there. During the industrial revolution in britain (or, leading up to it), these common areas were suddenly Elon Musked into private ownership and blocked off (enclosures), barring the poorer people from using them as earlier, to benefit some wealthy few. Variations of this happened across europe. I believe America also saw some conflicts between people wanting to use land area for cattle ('cowboys', or rather, the people above cowboys), and farmers, who did not want roaming cattle near their fields.
I have a copy of the Outline of History, now I will look for the Librivox recording. In his Autobiography he discusses Florence Deeks' copyright challenge. He was rather frustrated by the challenge. Apparently she made several claims against others too.
The general consensus of the literary establishment at least up to 20 years ago is that James was far greater than Wells, I believe that is still the accepted viewpoint, although some things I have heard and seen recently make me think that Wells may be getting re-evaluated, but still not above James I believe.
That said I happen to have a great deal of literary contempt for James and think he should be completely thrown away as a worthless piece of junk - which reasons I will not expound on here. Whereas I only ever found Wells sort of boring.
OK I found James boring too, but also a conceited punk of considerably lower quality than his own opinion and the critical establishment has given for an ability to write complicated sentences about inessential things (that was not expounding on my reasons, that was just a little snide aside)