The War in the Air, and Particularly How Mr. Bert Smallways Fared While It Lasted (Modern Library ML 5)

New York: Boni and Liveright, Inc. / Modern Library, 1917. First Thus. Hard Cover. Very Good/No Jacket. 0x0x0. First thus, one of two states with longer title (copyright page of this copy includes 1917 date, other copy also published in 1917 only states 1907 and 1908). Lacks scarce jacket. Toledano 005.1, binding style 1. Boards a bit soiled, ink name on front endpaper. 395 pp. Brown flexible binding, gilt titles, patterned endpapers. The War in the Air, a military science fiction novel by H.G. Wells, written in four months in 1907 and serialised and published in 1908 in The Pall Mall Magazine, is like many of Wells's works notable for its prophetic ideas, images, and concepts—in this case, the use of the aircraft for the purpose of warfare and the coming of World War I. The novel's hero is Bert Smallways, a "forward-thinking young man" and a "kind of bicycle engineer of the let's-'ave-a-look-at-it and enamel-chipping variety.