Mr. Hoopdriver, a gangling assistant at a Putney drapery emporium, sets out in August 1895 on ten days’ cycling holiday along the roads of Surrey and Sussex. At Ripley, Haslemere and Midhurst he keeps crossing paths with a Young Lady in Grey who is fleeing home in the company of a man with dishonourable plans, and the shop-boy decides to play the knight.
Wells at his gentlest: a comic, affectionate portrait of a lower-middle-class dreamer and the bicycle craze that set him free. Download the free EPUB.