Letter from H.G. Wells, London, to Miss Merrill, 1926 September 4 : autograph manuscript signed.

Writing to her in response to her work as an interviewer, "These are very good interviews -- how much better women do this sort of work than men!", but steadfastly declining the prospect of being interviewed himself, insisting that he is "rather an invisible man you know even from myself", and going on to facetiously state that he and his wife are "building up my life from what is to be found about myself in the newspapers, with a view to finding out who I really am.", particularly treasuring the "American cuttings of various dates which give me three wives, a long blonde moustache, make me a 'persona grata with royalty', endow me with a fine grown-up daughter (photograph published) & make the new London County Council building my town residence (photographs)"; going on to characterize his life, as portrayed in the press, as one of "incessant quarreling" and putting people he has quarreled with into books; noting that he has been variously called "a Communist, a socialist, a capitalist, an aristocrat, a pro-British propagandist & the friend of every country but my own"; citing the various protagonists from his novels which are said to be patterned after himself, and which are all said to be "little more than material for a passionate autobiography"; asking, in conclusion, "Why should you come poking after me in my happy though rather commonplace invisibility behind this magnificently mixed facade?"