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I took this up for some light relief during the reading of a long and serious novel in French which I am still reading. I wasn't disappointed. Wells held my attention without monopolising it to the detriment of my French reading.

Tono Bungay is the name of an elixir with no verifiable health value, but made immensely popular by clever marketing: today it would be called Red Bull. The narrator is the nephew of its inventor and promoter, and he goes along for the ride with his uncle from provincial obscurity to fame and huge financial success, and down again to financial ruin. The scenario serves Wells admirably as a vehicle for social and political commentary. His narrator (George Ponderevo) gives us Wells' opinions of the condition of England, the corruption of the financial system, the irrelevance of the old class system, and so on. The novel isn't preachy. George is a likeable narrator with a bent for science and technology He has his reservations about the probity of his uncle's enterprise, but acquiesces out of a mixture of family loyalty and his need for the financial means to marry (the marriage is not a success). There are no villains in the novel. Uncle Edward Ponderevo is an amiable dreamer with a gift for publicity and sales, but mildly unscrupulous about foisting a worthless product on a gullible public. His kindness to his homeless nephew, starved of love and intellectual stimulation, recommends him to the reader's favour. George's opinions seem quite natural for a young man with an enquiring mind and the opportunity from the vantage points which the financial success of Tono Bungay affords him.

There are elements of the science fiction adventure in Tono Bungay: George invents a flying machine, and uses it to pluck uncle Edward out of the reach of his creditors; he also leads an unsuccessful expedition to darkest West Africa to obtain radioactive "quap". However, it is basically a social novel in the vein of Kipps or Mr Polly, but with the central theme being the power of clever publicity to mislead the masses, very prescient in 1909, before the two world wars and the Bolshevic Revolution.

Tono Bungay is a little quaint and dated, but an enjoyable read nevertheless, and I found much to admire in Wells' bold reflections on his times.