PositiveThe Times Literary Supplement (UK)Enthusiastic appreciation with a qualifying afterthought typifies [Tomalin\'s] approach and it serves her well, allowing her to give a rounded sense of her subject’s personality ... She shows clearly how Wells’s early struggles made him determined to enjoy life to the full and prove his worth by achieving all he possibly could, whether it was by challenging the limits of the nineteenth-century novel or trying to browbeat the Fabian Society into becoming radical populists ... She is so sympathetic to his needs that she sides with him in judging his first wife not up to the job...This seems harsh and over-reliant on Wells’s say-so ... Out of all Wells’s biographers, Tomalin strikes me as the one most drawn to him as an actual person rather than as a verbal construct, the kind of fascinating creative type she would have wanted to encounter at those literary parties she describes in her autobiography ... As in her previous books, Tomalin creates an agreeable sense throughout of a reader sharing her findings honestly and thoughtfully with others. The account is divided into short, pacy chapters in which each event is considered with empathy and presented with clarity. Academic jargon is refreshingly absent and literary analysis kept to a minimum, though she provides sound descriptions of the books and reliable indications of which are the best to read ... In tackling a subject who did so much and knew so many people, it is easy to digress or be overwhelmed by information. Tomalin resists these temptations, but not always successfully ... A little tidying would not have gone amiss ... The sequencing of the Wells–Reeves relationship from undated letters is not always convincing; nor is their transcription.
