Christina Alberta's Father

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Christina Alberta's Father

Author	H. G. Wells
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Novel
Publisher	The Macmillan Company
Publication date	1925
Media type	Print (hardback)
Pages	401 pp
Preceded by	The Dream

Christina Alberta's Father (1925) is a novel by H. G. Wells set in London and environs in 1920–1922 with two protagonists: Albert Edward Preemby and his daughter, Christina Alberta.

Characters

Mr. Preemby is a dreamy, unassertive man until he is persuaded, in the months following his wife's death, that he is the incarnation of Sargon, the ancient king of Sumeria, returned to restore harmony in a disordered post-WWI world. He has long been attracted to esoterica and stories of ancient Atlantis, and is persuaded that he has a special destiny by a séance at a boarding house in Royal Tunbridge Wells. Committed to a lunatic asylum, Mr. Preemby escapes and recovers some of his sanity, but dies prematurely in the winter of 1921–1922.

Chris Hossett, his wife, before her demise runs the Limpid Stream Laundry with Mr. Preemby's assistance. Her only daughter, Christina Alberta, is not Mr. Preemby's natural daughter, being the fruit of a brief liaison in the summer of 1899 in the seaside resort of Sheringham. Christina is a strong personality determined to live independently. She later discovers, to their mutual surprise, her true father, Wilfred Devizes, a psychologist, during her search for Mr. Preemby. Devizes serves as a mouthpiece for many of H.G. Wells's social ideas in the latter half of the novel, such as the notion that "True education [is] self-subordination to a greater life, to the social self."^[1]

Christina Alberta's Father also features two other important characters: Paul Lambone, a successful writer who befriends Christina Alberta and is mostly treated in a comic vein, and Robert "Bobby" Roothing, an aspiring writer. Bobby finds "Sargon" appealing, in part because he is a veteran of military service in Mesopotamia during the First World War, and helps Mr. Preemby find a room during his "Sargon" phase, counseling him and then rescuing him from the asylum at Cummerdown Hill by taking him to lodgings in Dymchurch. Bobby falls in love with Christina Alberta, who reciprocates but refuses to marry him in order to maintain her independence.

References

↑ H.G. Wells, Christina Alberta's Father, Book III, Chapter 1, §12.

v t e Works by H. G. Wells

Nonfiction	Anticipations Certain Personal Matters Crux Ansata The Discovery of the Future An Englishman Looks at the World (U.S. title: Social Forces in England and America) Experiment in Autobiography The Fate of Man First and Last Things Floor Games The Future in America: A Search After Realities God the Invisible King In the Fourth Year Little Wars Mankind in the Making Mind at the End of Its Tether The New America: The New World The New World Order New Worlds for Old The Open Conspiracy The Outline of History Russia in the Shadows The Science of Life A Short History of the World The Story of a Great Schoolmaster This Misery of Boots Travels of a Republican Radical in Search of Hot Water War and the Future (North America: Italy, France and Britain at War) The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind World Brain A Year of Prophesying

Novels	All Aboard for Ararat Ann Veronica The Autocracy of Mr. Parham Bealby Boon Brynhild The Bulpington of Blup Christina Alberta's Father The Croquet Player The Dream The First Men in the Moon The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth The History of Mr Polly The Holy Terror In the Days of the Comet The Invisible Man The Island of Dr Moreau Joan and Peter Kipps Love and Mr Lewisham Marriage Meanwhile Men Like Gods A Modern Utopia Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island Mr. Britling Sees It Through The New Machiavelli The Passionate Friends The Research Magnificent The Sea Lady The Secret Places of the Heart The Shape of Things to Come The Sleeper Awakes The Soul of a Bishop Star-Begotten The Time Machine Tono-Bungay The Undying Fire The War in the Air The War of the Worlds The Wheels of Chance The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman The Wonderful Visit The World of William Clissold The World Set Free

Collections	The Country of the Blind and Other Stories The Plattner Story and Others Select Conversations with an Uncle The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents Tales of Space and Time Twelve Stories and a Dream

Short stories	"The Beautiful Suit" "The Chronic Argonauts" "The Country of the Blind" "The Crystal Egg" "A Deal in Ostriches" "A Dream of Armageddon" "The Empire of the Ants" "The Land Ironclads" "Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation" "The Lord of the Dynamos" "The Man Who Could Work Miracles" "The New Accelerator" "The Pearl of Love" "The Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper" "The Red Room" "The Star" "The Stolen Body" "A Story of the Days to Come" "A Story of the Stone Age" "Triumphs of a Taxidermist" "The Truth About Pyecraft" "A Vision of Judgment"

Screenplays	Things to Come The Man Who Could Work Miracles The New Faust

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