The Wheels of Chance (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

Mr. Hoopdriver, an unhappy draper’s assistant, takes a ten-day holiday: a bicycle tour of the English countryside. His repeated encounters with a pretty young woman cyclist in bloomers leads to flights of fancy that make this not only one of Well’s funniest novels but also gives an early glimpse of the “New Woman.” Wells’s delightful comedy also documents the bicycle’s liberating impact on social mores.