The Ethics of Empire: H.G. Wells Re-Writing R.L. Stevenson

This essay explores the connection between R.L. Stevenson and H. G. Wells, with a particular focus on their shared interest in the ethical implications of expansionism at the close of the nineteenth century. In The Island of Doctor Moreau, Wells surprisingly appears to have extensively borrowed from and reworked Stevenson's Pacific tale The Ebb-Tide. On these grounds, it is possible to trace an implied conversation between Wells and Stevenson, which takes its cue from Robert M. Philmus's pioneering workson the "Strange Case of Moreau." Moreau, as Philmus and other critics have noted, is in fact rich with intertextual connections, which complicate its meaning and make it highly ambivalent. The Ebb-Tide, a major and leading source text seemingly as relevant as Swift's Gulliver's Travels, has been largely neglected by contemporary criticism. Bringing more evidence to the case, this essay also connects Wells and Stevenson to a shared ideological awareness, while shedding more light on thesociopolitical horizons of Wells's early sf.