HG Wells Fans Spot Numerous Errors on Royal Mint's New £2 Coin

[6Foot2]

Link: HG Wells fans spot numerous errors on Royal Mint's new £2 coin [The Guardian]

 

 

Observant fans of HG Wells have questioned how a new coin from the Royal Mint commemorating The War of the Worlds author could be released with multiple errors, including giving his “monstrous tripod” four legs.

 

The £2 coin is intended to mark 75 years since the death of Wells, and includes imagery inspired by The War of the Worlds and The Invisible Man.

 

Unfortunately, it strays from Wells’s vision of his creations. “As someone who particularly likes one of his very famous stories, can I just note that the big walking machine on the coin has four legs? Four legs. The man famous for creating the Martian TRIpod,” wrote artist Holly Humphries. “How many people did this have to go through? Did they know how to count?”

 

Science fiction novelist and professor of 19th-century literature Adam Roberts, who is author of a biography of Wells and vice president of the HG Wells Society, also criticised the depiction of the Invisible Man, shown in a top hat; in the book he arrives at Iping under a “wide-brimmed hat”.

 

“It’s nice to see Wells memorialised, but it would have been nicer for them to get things right,” Roberts said. “A tripod with four legs is hard to comprehend (tri: the clue is in the name), and Wells’s (distinctly ungentlemanly) invisible man, Griffin, never wore a top hat ... I’d say Wells would be annoyed by this carelessness: he took immense pains to get things right in his own work – inviting translators of his book to stay with him to help the process and minimise errors and so on.”...

 

Oh, dear! If we were to fail so badly, perhaps questions would be asked!

Edited January 5, 2021 by 6Foot2
Correct several typos. :(

[mikeprice]

What - you mean pedantry is alive and well outside EduGeek

 

At last - good news!!!!

[Ditto]

The hat error I might just have lived with, but four legs - that's really crabby (or half crabby at least).