Mr Britling Sees It Through / In The Days Of The Comet: H.G. Wells

Mr Britling Sees It Through: The garrulous, easy-going Mr. Britling lives with family and friends in the fictional village of Matching's Easy, located in the county of Essex, northeast of London. Mrs Britling runs the household efficiently, but does not engage her husband's affections; he is involved in his eighth love affair. But this story, set as this is on the eve of the Great War, will indeed test Mr. Britling's casual ways. In The Days Of The Comet: William Leadford, third in the office staff of Rawdon's pot-bank (a place where pottery is made) in Clayton, quits his job just as an economic recession caused by American dumping hits industrial Britain, and is unable to find another position. He returns to being a student and his emotional life is dominated by his attachment to Nettie Stuart, the daughter of the head gardener of the rich Mr. Verrall's widow, of a village called Checkshill Towers. Converted to socialism by his friend Parload, Leadford blames class-based injustice for the squalid living conditions in which he and his mother live. When Nettie jilts Leadford for the son and heir of the Verrall family, Leadford buys a revolver, intending to kill them both and himself. A comet suddenly looms in the sky, eventually becoming brighter than the Moon. Just as Leadford is about to kill his rivals, the green comet enters the Earth's atmosphere and disintegrates, causing a soporific green fog. What will the effect be on Society?