The History of Mr. Polly cover art

The History of Mr. Polly

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The History of Mr. Polly

By: H. G. Wells
Narrated by: Susan Iannucci
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About this listen

Based on H. G. Wells’s own life experience in the drapery trade, this comic novel presents our anti-hero, Alfred Polly, miserable, timid, and without direction, but with a gift for creating incomprehensible conversational “epithets” to express himself. No one quite understands what he has just said to them … Was it a compliment? An insult? Was it profound or absurd?

The novel opens by telling us, “He hated Foxbourne, he hated Foxbourne High Street, he hated his shop and his wife and his neighbours—every blessed neighbour—and with indescribable bitterness he hated himself.” The story unfolds from Mr. Polly’s early education, his courtship and marriage, to his eventual discovery of purpose in life.

Originally published in 1910.

Public Domain (P)2023 Voices of Today Classics Marriage
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I don’t know who decided on who the narrator would be but they made a right balls up. The narrator is a North American lady, who I’m sure is a great narrator, but was simply the wrong one for this book. Her version of Southern English sounded Swedish. It was so bad I had to stop listening as I couldn’t take it anymore. I have read the book a couple of times and it really is a magical story, capturing a world long gone, but with the same anguish and problems we experience now.

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