New Worlds For Old

Wells explains the basics of socialist thought and theory from a Fabian prospective in an entertaining little book.

Chapters:

1. The Good Will in Man
2. The Fundamental Idea of Socialism
3. The First Main Generalization of Socialism
4. The Second Main Generalization of Socialism
5. The Spirit of Gain and the Spirit of Service
6. Would Socialism Destroy the Home?
7. Would Modern Socialism Abolish All Property?
8. The Middle-Class Man and Socialism
9. Some Objections to Socialism
10. Socialism a Developing Doctrine
11. Revolutionary Socialism
12. Administrative Socialism
13. Constructive Socialism
14. Some Arguments Ad Hominem
15. The Advancement of Socialism

Many of the individual chapters for New Worlds For Old were first published in 1907 for the Grand Magazine, but were heavily rewritten for this book. Wells was then a member of England's Fabian Society, which promoted (and still promotes!) the gradual advancement of socialism, in strong contrast to Marxist philosophy which preaches revolution.

New Worlds For Old not only discusses the basics of socialism, but also the differences between existing philosophies within it. Christian Socialism gets a fair amount of discussion as does Marx, who takes the usual Wellsian beating. Wells also tackles the differences between himself and pre-eminate Fabian, Sydney Webb. Not long after this book was published, Wells departed the Fabian Society after failing to seize control of its leadership and its direction, and some points of his contention with the leadership are addressed here.

Wells' tone throughout this book is quite moderate. Much later in his autobiography he admits that he edited himself; tempering some of his views in New Worlds For Old, particularly on the subject of marriage.

New Worlds For Old was a very good seller and went through several reprintings over the next decade after it was published. Hence, despite its age and lack of modern reprintings, it is not very rare.

Here is what the some of reviewers said about this book when it was newly published:

"...is a readable, straightforward account of Socialism it is singularly informing and all in an undidactic way."

-Chicago Evening Post.

"The book impresses us less as a defense of Socialism than as a work of art. In a literary sense, Mr. Wells has never done anything better."

-Argonaut

"...a very good introduction to Socialism. It will attract and interest those who are not of that faith, and correct those who are."

-The Dial

Some quotes from New Worlds For Old:

"No doubt it is still an unsatisfactory world that mars the roadside with tawdry advertisements of drugs and food; but less than two centuries ago, remember, the place of these boards was taken by gibbets and crow-pecked, tattered corpses swinging in the wind, and the heads of dead gentlemen (drawn and quartered, and their bowels burnt before their eyes) rotted in the rain on Temple Bar" (9).

"(Prostitutes) are the logical extremity of a civilization based on cash payments. Each of these women represents a smashed and ruined home and wasted possibilities... each one is so much sheer waste. For the food they consume, their clothing, their lodging, they render back nothing to the community as a whole, and only a gross dishonouring satisfaction to their casual employers. And don't imagine that they are inferior women, that there has been any selection of the unfit in their sterilization; they are, one may see for oneself, well above the average in physical vigour, in spirit and beauty. Few of them have come freely to their trade, the most unnatural in the world; few of them have any have anything but shame and loathing for their life; and most of them must needs face their calling fortified by drink and drugs... But it pays to be a prostitute, it does not pay to be a mother and a home maker..." (122-3).

"That Anarchist world, I admit is our dream; ... I... believe - this present world, this planet, will some day bear a race beyond our most exalted and temerarious dreams, a race begotten of our wills and the substance of our bodies, a race, so I have said it, 'who will stand upon the earth as one stands upon a footstool and laugh and reach our their hands amidst the stars,' but the way to that is through education and discipline and law" (241)

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