Not Merely a Novelist                                11

overestimated his market value; he asked for five hundred dollars a
lecture, but the impressarios of the lecture circuit were not willing
to go beyond $ 150. Besides, he would not make himself available in
the fall, their peak season, and was unwilling to advance funds for
advertising, as requested, or to provide promotional circulars.
 

H. G. Wells, ca. I9I5
 

Nevertheless, Wells's tour of America from March through May
of 1906 was a personal triumph for him. He was invited to lecture
at a number of universities, met Jane Addams, Theodore Roosevelt,
and Maxim Gorky, and while in New York was so completely
engaged that he could spare his agent only a half-hour visit.
According to his biographers Norman and Jean Mackenzie, he
found America a welcome relief from "the constraints of English
society." And he became one of Reynolds's most favored clients.

In one especially warm letter expressing his admiration for Tono-
Bungay, Reynolds added: "Utterly apart from any money I make