I picked this up at a used book store in Galway, Ireland because Machiavelli is one of my favorite writers. When I realized it was a Wells novel, I was excited. I bought it and scarfed it down, keeping notes the whole time. This is a great book. I find a lot of literature on Wells's more prominent works, such as The Time Machine (another great book, of course), but I haven't been able to find any online discussion of this book. If anyone stumbles upon this post, do yourself a favor and read the book.

And to the others who posted on this board: This is not a work by Machiavelli, Wells just uses Machiavelli's life as a loose frame. Also, Machiavelli favored republican(the classical kind, not the neoconservative kind) over despotic princes, and felt that the people were the only ones wise enough to handle government. Read his other works, like Discourses on Livy, before you condemn him.