Trivia / The Sleeper Awakes

• Reality Subtext: Vicars and bishops are revealed to be polygamous.
  • at the time the book was written, the Church of England Synod was debating whether ministers should be allowed to marry at all.
  • The Mormon Church, which did have polygamous clergy, had only abandoned polygamy in 1896, three years before Wells began serializing When The Sleeper Awakes and 14 years before The Sleeper Awakes was published.
• Science Marches On: The first draft of the book was published in 1899, and portrays a future where all aeroplanes are catapult launched and no aeroplane has ever fought another in the air before. By the time it was republished in 1924, Wells had to add a footnote to the chapter explaining "These chapters were written 15 years before there was any fighting in the air" and his preface apologises "The air fighting reads queerly now".

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