The New Machiavelli

The New Machiavelli is a 1911 novel by H. G. Wells that was serialized in The English Review in 1910. Because its plot notoriously derived from Wells's affair with Amber Reeves and satirized Beatrice and Sidney Webb, it was "the literary scandal of its day." A successful author and Liberal MP with a loving and benevolent wife, Richard Remington appears to be a man to envy. But underneath his superficial contentment, he is far from happy with either his marriage or the politics of his party. The New Machiavelli describes the disarray into which his life is thrown when he meets the young and beautiful Isabel Rivers and becomes tormented by desire.