[Ads-l] H. G. Wells enthusiasm for bicycles

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Thanks SG. Peter Reitan (off list) also helpfully pointed out that H.
G. Wells wrote a book titled "The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling
Idyll".

https://books.google.com/books?id=MgEoAAAAMAAJ&
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hwpasa&view=1up&seq=24&skin=2021

I should have mentioned that during my research I did encounter
"Wheels of Chance" because Diane Ackerman claimed that the quotation
under examination was located within that book. Unfortunately, I
performed a wide variety of searches and was unable to find the
quotation.

Here is Ackerman's claim:

[ref] 1999, Deep Play by Diane Ackerman, Chapter Six: Creating Minds,
Quote Page 134, Random House, New York. (Verified with scans) [/ref]

[Begin excerpt]
In Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll (1896), H. G. Wells proclaims:
“When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of
the human race.” To his mind, any ideal future must include bikes,
which is why he promises that “Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia.”
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Fri, Sep 24, 2021 at 9:58 AM Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu> wrote:
>
> Wells also wrote
> The wheels of chance,
> a bicycling idyll ...
>
> H G Wells;  J Ayton Symington
>
> 1896
> English[Book] Book[i]-viii, 1-321 [1] pages, 2 leaves frontispiece, illustrations 18.7 cm
> New York, Macmillan Co., ; ISBN: 0460019147 9780460019149
>
> SG

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