Little Wars; a Game for Boys from Twelve Years of Age to One Hundred and Fifty and for That More Intelligent Sort of Girl Who Likes Boys' Games and Books.
1913
Little Wars; a Game for Boys from Twelve Years of Age to One Hundred and Fifty and for That More Intelligent Sort of Girl Who Likes Boys' Games and Books.
1913
H.G. Wells, the man who imagined Martian invasions and time travel, once spent an afternoon shooting toy soldiers with a catapult. This book is the result of that obsession. Written in 1913 but radiating timeless boyish enthusiasm, Little Wars is both a rulebook and a love letter to the strategic pleasures of miniature warfare. Wells walks readers through the creation of battlefields (a drawing-room floor will do), the deployment of armies, and the art of the opening salvo. He recounts actual games with infectious delight, including the legendary Battle of Hook's Farm, where wounded soldiers are carried to the rear and cavalry charges decide fortunes. But beneath the玩耍 lies something sharper: Wells believed that playing at war might teach us to despise the real thing. The result is oddly moving, a window into a brilliant mind rediscovering the profound foolishness of conflict through lead soldiers and careful planning. Whether you actually play or simply read about others who did, this little book proves that the best science fiction author could also be the most charming hobbyist.
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“Then I look about me at my fellow-men; and I go in fear. I see faces, keen and bright; others dull or dangerous; others, unsteady, insincere,”
— H. G. Wells
“great proportion of the lower middle class should properly be assigned to the unemployed and the unemployable. They are only not that, because the possession of some small hoard of money, savings during a period of wage earning, an insurance policy or suchlike capital, prevents a direct appeal to the rates. But they are doing little or nothing for the community in return for what they consume;””
— H. G. Wells
“A weakly wilful being struggling to get obdurate things round impossible corners””
— H. G. Wells
“the etiolated pallor followed naturally enough.””
— H. G. Wells
“I feel as though the animal was surging up through them; that presently the degradation of the Islanders will be played over again on a larger scale.””
— H. G. Wells
“conditions that put a premium upon the loyal alliance of capable men, upon self-restraint, patience, and decision. And the institution of the family, and the emotions that arise therein, the fierce jealousy, the tenderness for offspring, parental self-devotion, all found their justification and support in the imminent dangers of the young.””
— H. G. Wells
“a sound rather more like a very, very old sheep a quarter of a mile away being blown to pieces by a small charge of gunpowder than anything else in the world””
— H. G. Wells
“much childbearing becomes an evil rather than a blessing to the State; where violence comes but rarely and offspring are secure, there is less necessity”
— H. G. Wells
