London, Macmillan, 1914. First edition, first impression. Hardback. A very good copy. An important Wells, and not particularly common in commerce. The first work of fiction to postulate an atomic weapon. Large chip to lower corner of the jacket, some toning and a few markings. A few nicks and creases. Block edges and endpapers toned. H.G. Wells (1866-1946) needs no introduction, without him the world of speculative fiction would have been much different. Prolific across many genres, his early work in what is now science fiction helped establish the notion of postulating what might happen if some element of scientific understand, often one thing, was a little more advanced or altered, be it time travel, evolution, invisibility, atom splitting. What resulted is a series of foundational works of fiction that are still taproots today. [11468, Hyraxia Books].