The Wheels of Chance

Infobox Book |
name = The Wheels of Chance


image_caption = The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll
author = H. G. Wells
illustrator = J. Ayton Symington
cover_artist = Jeff Quinn
country = GBR
language = English
genre = Comedy
publisher = J. M. Dent & Co
release_date = 1897
media_type = Print (Hardbound)
pages = 232 pp
isbn = NA

"The Wheels of Chance" is a comic novel by H. G. Wells.

Plot introduction

This novel was written at the peak of what has been called theGolden Age of the bicycle—the years of 1890-1905when practical, comfortable bicycles first became widelyand cheaply available, and before the rise of the automobile(see History of the bicycle). The advent of the bicyclestirred sudden and profound changes in thesocial life of England. It was unprecedented thata person of modest meanscould travel substantial distances, quickly, cheaplyand without being limited torailway schedules. The very idea oftravelling for pleasure became a possibility forthousands of people for the first time.This new freedom affected many. It began to weakenthe rigid English class structure and it gave anespecially powerful boost to the existing movement toward
female emancipation.

These are the social changes Wellsexplores in this story. His hero, Mr. Hoopdriver, isa draper's assistant, a badly-paid, grinding position onthe bottom fringes of the middle class—and yethe owns a bicycle and is just setting out on a bicyclingtour for his annual ten-days holiday.Wells pokes fun at Hoopdriver's pretenses.To Wells or his readers, a draper's assistant on a bicycle tour wasincongruous, only a bit less risible than a chimpanzee in a top hat.Today we can't feel this humor.

Wells portrays Hoopdriveras a dreamer full of Mitty-esque fantasies, and makes many jokesabout his shaky riding skills. Hoopdriver's awkwardness, the factthat the bicycle is only just under control and keeps getting awayfrom him, can be seen as a metaphor for how Wells saw his entiresociety: uncertain and only barely keeping its balance on this new machine.But Wells likes Hoopdriver and truly appreciates the bicycle as well.He describesthe start of Hoopdriver's adventure in a lyrical passage that any cyclist would enjoy:

Only those who toil six long days out of the seven, and all theyear round, save for one brief glorious fortnight or ten days inthe summer time, know the exquisite sensations of the FirstHoliday Morning. All the dreary, uninteresting routine drops fromyou suddenly, your chains fall about your feet...There were thrushes inthe Richmond Road, and a lark on Putney Heath. The freshness ofdew was in the air; dew or the relics of an overnight showerglittered on the leaves and grass...He wheeled his machine upPutney Hill, and his heart sang within him.

Not far along, Hoopdriver encounters a pretty youngwoman cycling alone and wearing "rationals"(bloomers).Modern readers, to whom a woman cycling alone (wearinga tank top and lycra shorts) is nothing unusual or even especiallyinteresting, cannot appreciate thetitillating shock this picture must have given Wells's readers.Here in one image was all the freedom, all the danger and all thesexual excitement inherent in the new freedom of the bicycle.

Hoopdriver doesn't dare speak to the Young Lady in Grey,as he calls her, but their paths keep crossing.It develops that she is, unknowingly, in great moraldanger, on the verge of being "ruined" by an unscrupulouscompanion. Eventually, and almost accidentally, Hoopdriversaves her from this fate worse than death, and the two wanderin innocent companionship across the south of Englanduntil the real world, in the shape of the young woman'sfamily, catch up with them. Interestingly, Wells usedreal geography: with a good map you can follow their routeover roads and through towns that still exist.

Wells is less sympathetic to his heroine, Jessie, thanto Hoopdriver. She is full of completely impractical notionsabout living a "real" life, meaning an independent lifefree of conventional limits. She has developed these ideas fromreading "modern" novels about women written by her stepmother,and Wells is savage and sarcastic in his treatment ofthis pretentious authoress and her coterie. He seems to thinkthat Jessie is hopelessly foolish in her romantic notionsof female independence, but that the older woman whoencourages these ideas without taking responsibilityfor the consequences is quite immoral.

In the end, both Jessie and Hoopdriver go back to theirformer lives, Jessie with some possibility of greaterfreedom and Hoopdriver with some possibility of advancingout of his dead-end job. Wells explicitly denies the readera finished, happy ending. He only claims not to know whathappens to them next, and invites our sympathy forboth. If the book is a metaphor for the effect of thebicycle on society, its ending is simply an admission thatWells can't tell if the revolution brought by its wheelswill be good or bad.

The text of "Wheels of Chance" is freely available at several sites on the internet.

H. G. Wells