The new coin is meant to celebrate 75 years of his death anniversary. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) According to a report in The Guardian, fans of author HG Wells have certain reservations regarding the new coin from the Royal Mint, which is meant to celebrate 75 years of the author’s death anniversary. Readers, reportedly, have identified “multiple errors”, chief among them being “monstrous tripod”, the martian created by the author, having four legs. Wells’ famous Invisible Man, too, has been depicted inaccurately.
“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. How many people did this have to go through? Did they know how to count?” artist Holly Humphries was quoted as saying.
“It’s nice to see Wells memorialised, but it would have been nicer for them to get things right. 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,” Science fiction author and author of Wells’ biography Adam Roberts was quoted as saying in the report.
A spokesperson for The Royal Mint weighed in. “We have created a new £2 coin to celebrate the life and works of HG Wells. The coin depicts scenes from famous works such as War of the Worlds and The Invisible Man as imagined by designer Chris Costello.”
