The Cone
"The Cone" | |
---|---|
Short story by H. G. Wells | |
Country | United Kingdom |
Genre(s) | Science fiction, Horror fiction |
Publication | |
Published in | Unicorn |
Media type | |
Publication date | 18 September 1895 |
"The Cone" is a short story by H. G. Wells, first published in 1895 in Unicorn. It was intended to be "the opening chapter of a sensational novel set in the Five Towns", later abandoned.[1]
The story is set at an ironworks in Stoke-on-Trent, in Staffordshire. An artist is there to depict the industrial landscape; the manager of the ironworks discovers his affair with his wife, and takes him on a tour of the factory, where there are dangerous features.
Summary
Raut, an artist, is visiting Horrocks, manager of the Jeddah Company Blast Furnaces, in order to study the industrial sights. An affair has developed between Raut and Horrocks's wife; Horrocks, unexpectedly entering the room where they are talking on a midsummer evening, seems to suspect it.
Horrocks takes Raut to show him around.
A blue haze, half dust, half mist, touched the long valley with mystery. Beyond were Hanley and Etruria, grey and dark masses, outlined thinly by the rare golden dots of the street lamps.... Here and there a pallid patch and ghostly stunted beehive shapes showed the position of a pot-bank, or a wheel, black and sharp against the hot lower sky, marked some colliery where they raise the iridescent coal of the place. Nearer at hand was the broad stretch of railway, and half invisible trains shunted... And to the left, between the railway and the dark mass of the low hill beyond, dominating the whole view, colossal, inky-black, and crowned with smoke and fitful flames, stood the great cylinders of the Jeddah Company Blast Furnaces... They stood heavy and threatening, full of an incessant turmoil of flames and seething molten iron, and about the feet of them rattled the rolling-mills, and the steam hammer beat heavily and splashed the white iron sparks hither and thither.
They walk towards Horrocks's ironworks.
'You see the fine effect of the railway signals towards Burslem,' said Horrocks, suddenly breaking into loquacity, striding fast, and tightening the grip of his elbow the while. 'Little green lights and red and white lights, all against the haze. You have an eye for effect, Raut. It's a fine effect.'
The route takes them near the railway line, and Raut wonders if Horrocks, guiding him roughly by the arm, is trying to push him into danger.
In the factory, Horrocks shows him the cone over the "throat" of a furnace, which is held from above by a chain; the cone shuts off the heat from the furnace to save energy, and is regularly lowered by the chain so that more fuel can be added.
Finally Horrocks seizes Raut by the arm; Raut loses his balance and he falls, saving himself by clutching the chain of the cone.
Horrocks, he saw, stood above him by one of the trucks of fuel on the rail. The gesticulating figure was bright and white in the moonlight, and shouting, 'Fizzle, you fool! Fizzle, you hunter of women!...' Suddenly he caught up a handful of coal out of the truck, and flung it deliberately, lump after lump, at Raut.
The cone drops and hot gas escapes from the furnace; Raut's end is described in macabre detail.
Writing and publication
Wells lived in Staffordshire for a few months in 1888, in Basford, near to Etruria where there were ironworks.[1][2] This period saw his first contact with industrial England. Wells found "the strange landscape of the Five Towns with its blazing iron foundries, its steaming canals, its clay whitened pot-banks and the marvellous effects of dust and smoke-laden atmosphere, very stimulating".[3] "The Cone" includes evocative descriptions of the sights and sounds of the industrial landscape.
"The Cone" was included in the collection of Wells short stories The Plattner Story and Others, published by Methuen & Co. in 1897. It was reprinted in The Country of the Blind and Other Stories, a collection of short stories by Wells published by Thomas Nelson & Sons in 1911.[4]
References
- ^ a b John R. Hammond (22 July 2014). A Preface to H G Wells. Routledge. pp. 90–. ISBN 978-1-317-87701-1.
- ^ H. G. Wells writer stayed in this house during the year 1888. Open Plaques, accessed 12 May 2016.
- ^ Wells, H. G. (1934). "Chapter the Sixth: Struggle for a Living". Experiment in Autobiography. Archived from the original on 25 October 2017.
- ^ The Cone title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, accessed 15 August 2015.
External links
- The complete short fiction of H. G. Wells at Standard Ebooks
- The Cone public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- The Cone audiobook with video at YouTube
- The Cone audiobook at Libsyn
- v
- t
- e
- The Time Machine (1895)
- The Wonderful Visit (1895)
- The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896)
- The Wheels of Chance (1896)
- The Invisible Man (1897)
- The War of the Worlds (1898)
- When the Sleeper Wakes (1899)
- Love and Mr Lewisham (1900)
- The First Men in the Moon (1901)
- The Sea Lady (1902)
- The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (1904)
- Kipps (1905)
- A Modern Utopia (1905)
- In the Days of the Comet (1906)
- The War in the Air (1908)
- Tono-Bungay (1909)
- Ann Veronica (1909)
- The History of Mr Polly (1910)
- The Sleeper Awakes (1910)
- The New Machiavelli (1911)
- Marriage (1912)
- The Passionate Friends (1913)
- The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman (1914)
- The World Set Free (1914)
- Bealby (1915)
- Boon (1915)
- The Research Magnificent (1915)
- Mr. Britling Sees It Through (1916)
- The Soul of a Bishop (1917)
- Joan and Peter (1918)
- The Undying Fire (1919)
- The Secret Places of the Heart (1922)
- Men Like Gods (1923)
- The Dream (1924)
- Christina Alberta's Father (1925)
- The World of William Clissold (1926)
- Meanwhile (1927)
- Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island (1928)
- The Autocracy of Mr. Parham (1930)
- The Bulpington of Blup (1932)
- The Shape of Things to Come (1933)
- The Croquet Player (1936)
- Brynhild (1937)
- Star Begotten (1937)
- The Camford Visitation (1937)
- Apropos of Dolores (1938)
- The Brothers (1938)
- The Holy Terror (1939)
- Babes in the Darkling Wood (1940)
- All Aboard for Ararat (1940)
- You Can't Be Too Careful (1941)
- Anticipations
- Certain Personal Matters
- Crux Ansata
- The Discovery of the Future
- An Englishman Looks at the World
- Experiment in Autobiography
- The Fate of Man
- First and Last Things
- Floor Games
- The Future in America
- God the Invisible King
- In the Fourth Year
- Little Wars
- Mankind in the Making
- Mind at the End of Its Tether
- Mr. Belloc Objects to "The Outline of History"
- The New America
- The New World Order
- New Worlds for Old
- The Open Conspiracy
- The Outline of History
- Russia in the Shadows
- The Science of Life
- A Short History of the World
- The Story of a Great Schoolmaster
- This Misery of Boots
- Travels of a Republican Radical in Search of Hot Water
- War and the Future
- The Way the World Is Going
- The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind
- World Brain
- A Year of Prophesying
- "Æpyornis Island"
- "The Argonauts of the Air"
- "The Beautiful Suit"
- "The Chronic Argonauts"
- "The Cone"
- "The Country of the Blind"
- "The Crystal Egg"
- "A Deal in Ostriches"
- "The Diamond Maker"
- "The Door in the Wall"
- "A Dream of Armageddon"
- "The Empire of the Ants"
- "In the Abyss"
- "The Land Ironclads"
- "Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation"
- "The Lord of the Dynamos"
- "The Man Who Could Work Miracles"
- "The New Accelerator"
- "The Pearl of Love"
- "The Plattner Story"
- "The Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper"
- "The Red Room"
- "The Sea Raiders"
- "The Star"
- "The Stolen Body"
- "A Story of the Days to Come"
- "A Story of the Stone Age"
- "Triumphs of a Taxidermist"
- "The Truth About Pyecraft"
- "A Vision of Judgment"
- Things to Come (1936)
- The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1937)
- Political views
- G. P. Wells
- Anthony West (son)
- Joseph Wells (father)
- Simon Wells (great-grandson)
- H. G. Wells Society
- Lunar crater
- Time After Time (1979 film)