When the Sleeper Wakes

When the Sleeper Wakes is a dystopian novel by British author H.G. Wells, first published in serial form in The Graphic between 1899 and 1903. In 1910, Wells expanded the story into the full-length novel The Sleeper Wakes, published by Harper & Brothers. Both versions center on Graham, a Victorian man who falls asleep and wakes up 203 years later to find a very different London—and himself a very different man. Both incarnations of the story follow the same basic framework, but, in Wells's own words, the earlier version “was written under considerable pressure; there are marks of haste not only in the writing of the latter part, but in the very construction of the story."

One day in 1897, Graham, a chronic insomniac, decides to take a drug that he hopes will help him sleep. And help him sleep it does. Graham slips into a coma, only to wake up in the year 2100. He promptly notices that his waking seems to alarm the people around him; clearly, they had never expected him to regain consciousness.

London is not at all how he left it. The city is a gleaming steel and glass metropolis, with virtually everything automated and mechanized. Word of the Sleeper's awakening spreads through the city, and people arrive at his doorstep, demanding a glimpse of this legendary man. But why, Graham wants to know, is he so special? What has happened in the last 203 years to turn him into such an icon? The people who surround him will not provide him answers. Instead, they put him under arrest; that is when he learns the truth.



After Graham first fell asleep, he inherited a huge sum of money in a trust. As he slept, various trustees—called the White Council—managed the money on his behalf, eventually investing it in a new world order and establishing their own vision of political and social dominance. So, upon Graham's waking, he is, by default, the most powerful man in the world. From a legal perspective, he owns the majority of the planet.

The White Council wants Graham dead. They attempt to assassinate him, but rebels—headed by the revolutionary "boss" Ostrog—help him escape. Graham doesn't know who to trust and reluctantly goes with them. He soon finds himself in the midst of a burgeoning revolution, with the workers, led by Ostrog, rising up against the White Council that enslaves them.

During a march, the state police attack the revolutionaries; in the melee, Graham meets a wizened old man who fills him in on the evildoings of the White Council. The old man, not aware who he's talking to, tells Graham about the Sleeper and how the Council invested the Sleeper's money to buy up all major industry and political influence across the world. This resulted in a plutocracy that abolished the existing world order, including Parliament and the monarchy in Great Britain. The old man is skeptical that the Sleeper even exists, believing that he is merely a symbol brandished by the Council.



After the police attack, the revolutionaries gain the upper hand, and Graham and Ostrog reunite. They want the Sleeper to assume the role of leader. Graham agrees, though he is really only a figurehead; the true leader is Ostrog.

This arrangement suits Graham just fine; he leads a carefree life of leisure. He takes an interest in airplanes and learns to fly them. From his bird's-eye view in the pilot seat, he sees just how much his country changed while he was asleep. There is no more countryside in England; all agricultural work moved toward an automated model handled by the cities. Everyone now lives and works in one of four massive, windmill-powered metropolises.

One day, Helen Wotton opens Graham's eyes to the reality of life in post-revolution England. Nothing has really changed at all. The upper classes still enslave and control the lower classes. Graham goes to Ostrog and grills him, demanding to know why he has not implemented any of the revolutionary ideals. Ostrog defends the system he has put in place, but it gradually dawns on Graham that Ostrog only wanted power, not change. Workers have kept on rebelling against the system, even after the demise of the White Council; Ostrog employs an African police force to quell the rebellions.



Graham, still ostensibly the one in charge, orders the police forces out of London; Ostrog agrees. Graham then goes undercover to see what life is like for the workers. It doesn't take long for him to uncover the brutal reality the lower classes must deal with day in and day out. From virtually no pay to zero job security, from rampant diseases to the total disintegration of the family unit (large institutions raise all the lower-class children), there is no life to speak of for the poor. Even euthanasia is common and widely accepted—anything to escape the worker's life.

Then, Ostrog's henchmen return to London. The workers rebel, leading Graham to safety. He again runs into Helen, who informs him that it was she who told the working class about Ostrog's deception.

Graham becomes the leader of the resistance, and with the newly gathered working classes on his side, he sets out to liberate London. War ensues, and Ostrog's massive military force outpowers the rebels. Graham gives away his entire fortune and flies the rebel's single airplane into Ostrog's army. He manages to shoot a few of the enemy planes down, while the rebels on the ground succeed in shooting some of the planes out of the sky.



In the end, Graham and Ostrog come face-to-face—or plane-to-plane—high in the clouds. Graham launches an attack on Ostrog but fails. Graham's plane crashes, and he spirals to Earth, defeated by his onetime ally, the fate of the world hanging in limbo.