A fitting representation of Wells’s series of social romances, in this new edition Ann Veronica assumes enhanced value as an examination of the ‘Woman Question’ at the turn of the twentieth century. Carey Snyder’s fine introduction and her selection of texts for the appendices encourage readers to join in the sort of debate that Wells strove to inspire in his fiction. Notably Snyder appreciates the lifelong accomplishments of Amber Reeves, whose youthful affair with Wells was the inspiration for the lively central character. There are also some well-selected primary texts recording the views of Wells on his own work, the arguments of would-be censors, the Fabians, the suffrage movement, modernist reviewers, and Beatrice Hastings of The New Age.” — Bonnie Kime Scott, Professor Emerita, San Diego State University and the University of Delaware
“Carey Snyder has produced a splendid new edition of H.G. Wells’s under-read take on the social and literary phenomenon of the New Woman. The novel itself, like most of Wells’s work, is a great read, and Snyder supplies a first-rate introduction that locates Ann Veronica in its moment—the woman’s suffrage movement, debates about marriage, chastity, sexual candor, and socialism—as well a rich selection of appendices reproducing a wide range of contextual documents, from John Ruskin on separate spheres for men and women to selections of letters to Wells from Amber Reeves, one of the historical/autobiographical models for his eponymous heroine. By situating Ann Veronica so deftly in its own moment, Snyder lets it speak to ours.” — Mark Wollaeger, Vanderbilt University
“Snyder’s terrific edition does justice to Ann Veronica’s experiments in the modern and to the implications of the ‘modern romance’ of its subtitle. Its introduction and notes assist readers with understanding contemporary contexts and debates, while its appendices provide readers with tools to extend their analyses of the novel’s engagement with, among other topics, feminism, theories of modern fiction, socialism, censorship, evolutionary biology, urban life, and contrary notions of ‘modernity.’” — Elizabeth F. Evans, Modernism/modernity
