The Passionate Friends: H.G. Wells
A book about two people who (unlike the average Wellsian hero or heroine) refuse to break the rules. He is an old-Etonian do-gooder, she a wealthy woman trapped (through her own wilfulness) in a loveless marriage. They are humourless, whiny, exasperating- very hard to like- and the following year (with The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman) Wells very sensibly rewrote their story as a comedy.