Graham fell into a deep and abiding sleep in the 1890s -- and woke, centuries later, having hardly aged. He has been the famous Sleeper for centuries, and has come, by inheritance and the compounding of interest, to own the world. The people adore him -- and their masters (who rule in his name) do not want him breathing. . . .

"Nothing is more striking about Mr. Wells . . . than his power of lending freshness and vitality to some well-worn formula of fiction." --The Spectator