Kipps
Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul is a novel by H. G. Wells, first published in 1905. Humorous yet sympathetic, this perceptive social novel is generally regarded as a masterpiece, and was the author's own favourite work.[1]
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[edit] Plot
Artie (Arthur) Kipps is an orphan, raised by his uncle and aunt. He is friends with Sid and Ann Pornick, the children of his next-door neighbour. When Kipps leaves home to be apprenticed for seven years as a draper (based on Wells's own experience), he and Ann cut a sixpence in half, each of them taking one half as a keepsake.
His life changes suddenly when he is run down by a playwright on a bicycle one evening. The playwright, Chitterlow, tries to make amends, and he and Kipps get drunk. Kipps is then fired from the draper's shop for being out all night. But Chitterlow shows him a newspaper advertisement claiming that if Kipps will call on a solicitor named Bean, he will learn something to his advantage. Kipps worries that it might be a trick, but with no job, he has few options and decides to visit the solicitor.
Bean reveals that Kipps is the grandson of a wealthy gentleman. Kipps inherits a townhouse and a fortune (£1200 per year) and is abruptly thrown into upper class society. Mrs Walshingham, the mother of his woodcarving class teacher Helen, had formerly despised him as lower class, but now seeks to marry her daughter to him and his money. Kipps becomes engaged to the Helen. She and her friend Chester Coote try to teach Kipps how to behave in society and suggest he change his name to the more aristocratic-sounding Cuyps or even Cuyp. Kipps struggles to learn etiquette, while his uncle is forever buying useless, broken knickknacks as 'investments', and Chitterlow borrows £2000 from Kipps to finance his latest play.
One day, when visiting, Kipps meets Ann Pornick, serving as a maid. They have each kept their half-sixpence during their years apart. Fed up with a society he cannot understand, Kipps elopes with Ann. They marry, but he is still torn between the low social position he is comfortable in and that to which his wealth calls him. Then he discovers Helen's brother, to whom he had entrusted his money, has embezzled it and fled the country. Kipps is shattered. Luckily, Bean manages to rescue £1000. Kipps and Ann set up a bookshop and have a child.
Finally, Chitterlow, whom Kipps had written off as a sponger, stumbles into Kipps's shop one morning, drunk and disorderly: his play is a roaring success! It tours the world, and Kipps' fortune is restored. Kipps decides from now on to keep his money in the bank and not invest it.
[edit] Adaptations
Kipps has been adapted for other media several times. In 1921, a silent film version set in Folkestone, and (for the final scene) shot on location in Canterbury and partly at the Savoy Hotel. Wells was an extra in the film. The 1941 adaptation starred Michael Redgrave in the title role. It was adapted as an eight-part television serial by Granada Television, with Brian Murray as Kipps, and shown on the ITV network between 14 October and 2 December 1960; this version no longer exists.[2]
Kipps was adapted into the stage musical Half a Sixpence by David Heneker and Beverley Cross. It was originally mounted on London's West End as a star vehicle for Tommy Steele, and transferred to Broadway (with Steele) in the 1965–1966 season. It was filmed in 1967, again with Steele in the starring role.
[edit] References
- ^ back cover blurb, Fontana edition, 1961
- ^ The Kaleidoscope British Independent Television Drama Research Guide 1955-2010, page 2307 (Simon Coward, Richard Down & Christopher Perry; Kaleidoscope Publishing, 2nd edition, 2010, ISBN 978-1-900203-33-3)
[edit] External links
- "Kipps" (1921 film) on IMDB
- "Kipps" (1941 film) on IMDB
- "Half a Sixpence" on IMDB
- "Half a Sixpence" on IBDB
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