WELLS, Herbert George (1866-1946). Author.
8 Autograph Letters Signed ('H.G. Wells' (5) and 'H.G.' (3) to A.G. Gardiner, 11 pages 4to, London and Dunmow, no date (before 1921). Discussing articles and responding to Gardiner's compliments. '..there is no such happiness for a writer as to be over praised, beautifully, abundantly & conspicously by a writer he likes & respects...'

'My friend Haynes has written a book on The Decline of Liberty in England. It is tosh. But he wants me to review it & will not mind if I slate it. It will give me an opportunity of opening what I intend to be a thorough quarrel with the New Witness lot ... I hate that school with its idea of the Right of Every Man to belch in his neighbour's face with a growing savagery. ... '

E.Signed Photograph Haynes was a director of the New Witness, edited by G K Chesterton's brother, Cecil; the paper had developed a reputation for anti-Semitic views. The Decline of Liberty in England came out in 1916. Earlier that year a reviewer in the paper had launched an attack on Ford Madox Hueffer (Ford) and Violet Hunt's Zeppelin Nights, which soon widened into an attack on Ford's masterpiece, The Good Soldier, levelling further accusations on its author as being an unpatriotic Jew. Wells had written a furious letter in protest over the affair to his friend G.K. Chesterton.

Wells's correspondent Gardiner was editor of the Liberal Daily News, and had also been in opposite camps to the New Witness.
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