Tono-Bungay by H. G. Wells

First published: 1908

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Social satire

Time of plot: Late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Locale: England; West Africa; Bordeaux, France

Principal characters

• George Ponderevo, a young scientist and the narrator
• The Honorable Beatrice Normandy, an aristocrat
• Edward Ponderevo, George’s uncle
• Susan Ponderevo, George’s aunt
• Marion Ramboat, George’s wife

The Story:

George Ponderevo grows up in the shadow of Bladesover House, where his mother is the housekeeper. In that Edwardian atmosphere, the boy soon becomes aware of the wide distinctions between English social classes, for the neighborhood around Bladesover is England in miniature, a small world made up of the quality, the church, the village, the laborers, and the servants. Although George spends most of his time away at school, he returns to Bladesover for his vacations. During one of his vacations, he learns for the first time about the class of which he is a member—the servants.

His lesson comes as the result of the arrival at Bladesover House of the Honorable Beatrice Normandy, an eight-year-old child, and her snobbish young half brother, Archie Garvell. Twelve-year-old George Ponderevo falls in love with the little aristocrat that summer. Two years later, their childish romance ends abruptly when George and Archie fight each other. George is disillusioned because the Honorable Beatrice does not come to his aid. In fact, she betrays him, abandons him, and lies about him, depicting George as an assailant of his social betters.

When George refuses flatly to apologize to Archie Garvell, he is taken to Chatham and put to work in the bakery owned by his mother’s brother, Nicodemus Frapp. George finds his uncle’s family dull, cloddish, and overreligious. One night, in the room he shares with his two cousins, he tells them in confidence that he does not believe in any form of revealed religion. Traitorously, his cousins report George’s blasphemy to their father. As a result, George is called upon in a church meeting to acknowledge his sins. Humiliated and angry, he runs away, going back to his mother at Bladesover House.

Mrs. Ponderevo then sends him to live with another uncle, his father’s brother, Edward Ponderevo, at Wimblehurst, in Sussex. There George works in his uncle’s chemist’s shop, or pharmacy, after school. Edward Ponderevo is a restless, dissatisfied man who wants to expand his business and make money. His wife, Aunt Susan, is a gentle, patient woman who treats George kindly. George’s mother dies during his years at Wimblehurst.

George’s pleasant life at Wimblehurst is eventually brought to a sudden end. Through foolish investments, Edward Ponderevo loses everything of his own, including the chemist’s shop, as well as a small fund he had been holding in trust for George. Edward and Susan Ponderevo are forced to leave Wimblehurst, but George remains behind as an apprentice with Mr. Mantell, the new owner of the shop.

At the age of nineteen, George goes to London to matriculate at the University of London for his bachelor of science degree. On the trip, his uncle, now living in London, shows him the city and first whispers to him the name of Tono-Bungay, an invention on which the older Ponderevo is working. Instead of attending the university at that time, however, George decides to accept a scholarship at the Consolidated Technical Schools at South Kensington. When he finally arrives in London to begin his studies, he is nearly twenty-two years old. One day, he meets an old schoolfellow, Ewart, an artist who exerts a broadening influence on the young man. He also meets Marion Ramboat, who is later to become his wife. Under these influences, George begins to neglect his studies. When he sees a billboard advertising Tono-Bungay, he remembers the hints his uncle had thrown out several years before. A few days later, George’s uncle sends him a telegram in which he offers the young man a job paying three hundred pounds per year.

Tono-Bungay is a patent medicine, a stimulant that is very inexpensive to make and only slightly injurious to the persons who take it. After a week of indecision, George joins his uncle’s firm. One factor that helps to sway him is the thought that Marion Ramboat might be persuaded to marry him if he were to improve his income. Using new and bold methods of advertising, George and his exuberant uncle make Tono-Bungay a national product. The enterprise is highly successful, and both George and his uncle become wealthy. At last, Marion consents to marry George, but their marriage is unsuccessful. They are divorced after Marion learns that her husband had gone off for the weekend with Effie Rink, one of the secretaries in his office. After his divorce, George devotes himself to science and research, and he also becomes interested in flying.

In the meantime, Edward Ponderevo branches out into many enterprises, partly through the influence of the wealthy Mr. Moggs, with whom he has become associated. His huge corporation, Domestic Utilities, becomes known as Do-Ut, and his steady advancement in wealth can be traced through the homes in which he lives. The first is an elaborate suite of rooms at the Hardingham Hotel. Next comes a villa at Beckenham; next, an elaborate estate at Chiselhurst, followed by the chaste simplicity of a medieval castle, Lady Grove; and finally, the ambitious but uncompleted splendor of the great house at Crest Hill, on which three hundred workmen are at one time employed.

While his uncle is buying houses, George is absorbed in his experiments with gliders and balloons, working in his special workshop with Cothope, his assistant. The Honorable Beatrice Normandy is staying near Lady Grove with Lady Osprey, her stepmother, and she and George become acquainted again. After a glider accident, she nurses him back to health. Although the two fall in love, Beatrice refuses to marry him.

Suddenly all of Edward Ponderevo’s world of top-heavy speculation collapses. On the verge of bankruptcy, he clutches at anything he can to save himself from financial ruin and the loss of his great, uncompleted project at Crest Hill. George does his part by undertaking a voyage to Mordet Island in the brig Maude Mary, to secure by trickery a cargo of quap, an ore containing two new elements valuable to the Ponderevos largely because they hope to use canadium—one of the ingredients—in making a new and better lamp filament. The long, difficult voyage to West Africa is unpleasant and unsuccessful. After the quap has been stolen and loaded on the ship, the properties of the ore cause the ship to sink in midocean. Rescued at sea, George learns of his uncle’s bankruptcy as soon as he arrives ashore at Plymouth.

To avoid arrest, George and his uncle decide to cross the English Channel at night in George’s airship and escape the law by posing as tourists in France. The stratagem proves successful, and they land about fifty miles from Bordeaux. Then Edward Ponderevo becomes dangerously ill at a small inn near Bayonne, and a few days later he dies, before his wife can reach his side.

Back in England, George has a twelve-day love affair with Beatrice Normandy, who still refuses to marry him because, she says, she is spoiled by the luxury of her class. George Ponderevo, by this time a severe critic of degeneration in England, becomes a designer of destroyers.

Bibliography

Costa, Richard Hauer. H. G. Wells. Rev. ed. Boston: Twayne, 1985. Includes a critical summary of Tono-Bungay, which is described as “heralding . . . the new [twentieth] century amidst the debris of the old.” Demonstrates how this novel shows Wells as both “mystic visionary” and “storyteller.”

Hammond, J. R. An H. G. Wells Companion: A Guide to the Novels, Romances, and Short Stories. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1979. Describes Tono-Bungay as “a picture of a radically unstable society and an indictment of irresponsible capitalism.” Calls the novel Wells’s “finest single achievement.”

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. A Preface to H. G. Wells. New York: Longman, 2001. Provides information on Wells’s life and cultural background as well as the important people and places in his life. Also offers critical commentary on Wells’s works, including Tono-Bungay, and a discussion of his literary reputation.

Huntington, John, ed. Critical Essays on H. G. Wells. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991. Collection of essays updates critical work on Wells, including the novel Tono-Bungay.

Mackenzie, Norman, and Jeanne Mackenzie. H. G. Wells. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973. Discusses the autobiographical aspects of the narrator of Tono-Bungay, George Ponderevo; the circumstances of the writing of the novel; and its critical reception. Argues that “with Tono-Bungay Wells reached the peak of his career as a novelist.”

McLean, Steven, ed. H. G. Wells: Interdisciplinary Essays. Newcastle, England: Cambridge Scholars, 2008. Collection of essays analyzes individual novels and discusses general characteristics of Wells’s work.

Wagar, W. Warren. H. G. Wells: Traversing Time. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2004. Analyzes all of Wells’s work, focusing on the author’s preoccupation with the unfolding of public time and the history and future of humankind. Demonstrates how Wells’s writings remain relevant in the twenty-first century.