Kipps

As there is a new production of the musical "Half a Sixpence" about to be staged at Windsor I was interested in looking at "Kipps" the book on which the musical is based. To my surprise this is not listed in H.G Wells list of books and when I tried a search I was told there were no results.

Half a sixpence did strike me as familiar. I did not know it was a musical based on Kipps. I have started reading it. It is quite funny. It is not the least bit like his science fiction.

Nearly finished. Some parts were good, but I often did not want to read the next chapter. It is astonishing to think what a class divided country Britain was back then. It is a different planet now. Kipps is brought up as a lower middle class boy, becomes rich but is a fish out of water. I thought it might be like Great Expectations, but it was not because Kipps is a different character. He israther more straightforward than Pip. He is not as deep, not as snobbish, does not torture himself so much, and although Kipps has girl trouble, it is not as bad.

Kipps' background is rather like Wells', although Wells got the hang of being wealthy. However, Wells had all his writing and his political societies and scientific interests to keep him occupied. No doubt he learnt which knife and fork to hold, and did not worry too much about the etiquette of calling on people and such like. One of the stronger parts of the book was when Kipps undergoes his apprenticeship as a draper. Wells was as apprentice draper himself and he did not like it. The hours were long; the work was heavy and tedious; the pay was poor, and the job security was poor too. Kipps was not really like Wells. Wells was sex mad; Kipps did not appear to be particularly. Wells was an extrememly clever chap; Kipps was not portrayed as such.

Come to think upon it, the majority of most successful British Victorian were lower middle class. From memory, Charles Dickens' father was a clerk in the Admiralty, Thomas Hardy was the son of a stonemason and a domestic servant. I think George Elliot's father was a steward of some sort. Patrick Bronte was a clergyman, but not one of the wealthy kind. George Gissing was the son of a pharmacist. W.M. Thackery was rather richer I think. I think his father was a merchant who made money out of India. I am guessing Anthony Trollope came from a somewhat better off background. I am not sure about Elizabeth Gaskell. Her husband was a Unitarian minister. I don't know how much money there is in that, but I don't think they were particularly poor.