Love and Mr. Lewisham

Love and Mr Lewisham (subtitled "The Story of a Very Young Couple") is a 1900 novel set in the 1880s by H. G. Wells. It was among his first fictional writings outside the science fiction genre. Wells took considerable pains over the manuscript and said of it that "the writing was an altogether more serious undertaking than I have ever done before." After a two-and-a-half-year break in the action, Mr Lewisham is in his third year of study at the Normal School of Science in South Kensington. He has become a socialist, declaring his politics with a red tie, and is an object of interest to Alice Heydinger, an older student. But chance brings him together again with his first love at a séance. Ethel's stepfather, Mr Chaffery, is a spiritualist charlatan, and Mr Lewisham is determined to extricate her from association with Chaffery's dishonesty. They marry, but Mr Lewisham is forced to abandon his plans for a brilliant scientific career followed by a political ascent.