Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul

First published in 1905, H. G. Wells’s Kipps is an appraisal of society and class framed in a “rags to riches” style plot. The protagonist, Arthur Kipps, is an orphan who, from an early age, is entrusted to his Aunt and Uncle who own a shop in New Romney on the Kent coast in Southern England. Educated poorly at a cheap, middle-class seminary boarding school, he is later apprenticed for seven years to a draper in Folkstone. Before he leaves home, however, Arthur becomes enamored by Ann (his best friend’s sister). As a token of their love, they cut a sixpence in half and keep one half each. After a difficult apprenticeship and a drunken night out, he’s dismissed from his job. But his friend Chitterlow (an actor and playwright) points out an article in a newspaper whereby Kipps is shocked to learn that he is, in fact, the grandson of a wealthy gentleman and is heir to a fortune. His life is totally changed as he is thrown into British upper-class society. He struggles to master the manners and rules that accompany his change of social status. But as he soon discovers, becoming a ‘true gentleman’ is not necessarily a good thing and certainly not easily achieved. In Kipps, H. G. Wells achieves a work on a par with Dickens for observation of place, class, and society. It has been adapted often for stage, (the Musical Half a Sixpence is loosely based on it) film, and television.