Childhood Passion and Publishing Career Forge a Remarkable Library: The Victor Gulotta Collection of H. G. Wells

Victor Gulotta Collection of H. G. Wells

A bibliophile's decades-long collecting odyssey stretches across the millennia and returns to a favorite childhood author.

DALLAS, TX, UNITED STATES, December 11, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Heritage Auctions will present a Rare Books Signature Auction on December 15th featuring The Victor Gulotta Collection of H. G. Wells, described as “a deeply personal and meticulously assembled library reflecting a collector’s lifelong admiration for one of the giants of modern literature.”

Gulotta started reading Wells at the age of eleven, beginning with The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, and the other early novels that would define the birth of science fiction. Decades later, after a collecting adventure that focused on antiquities, manuscripts, and literary first editions, he returned to the writer who had first ignited his imagination and built a comprehensive Wells collection that spans fiction, nonfiction, manuscript material, and association copies of exceptional interest.

“My interest in collecting, which logically turned to Wells, my first passion, was further fueled by a book publishing career in which I had the fortune of working editorially and promotionally with such literary giants of science and science fiction as Isaac Asimov and Martin Garder,” Gulotta says. “Before long, I was meeting and corresponding with writers like L. Sprague de Camp, Harlan Ellison, Stephen Jay Gould, Frank Herbert, Theodore Sturgeon, and Sir Arthur C. Clarke.”

Among the highlights of Gulotta’s collection is a magnificent first edition of The Time Machine, inscribed by Ray Bradbury, whose note reads: “H. G. Wells was my love!” This copy of Wells’ earliest and one of his greatest sci-fi novels is notable for its extraordinary association, as Bradbury was the writer who influenced Wells most.

Equally significant is an exceptionally early autograph letter signed by Wells in 1889, written four years before the publication of his first book. Addressed to a former classmate, the letter reveals Wells in his formative years: Young, ambitious, and already deeply engaged with the intellectual concerns that would shape his work.

The collection also includes a three-page autograph letter to Henry Davray, Wells’ chief translator and a major figure in the dissemination of his work to French audiences. In it, Wells references The First Men in the Moon and When the Sleeper Wakes, providing insight into his thinking at a pivotal moment in his career.

A particularly noteworthy association copy is the first edition of The Autocracy of Mr. Parham, inscribed to Rebecca West, Wells’s literary collaborator and the woman with whom he had a long romantic relationship. The volume is not only a rare presentation copy but a tangible artifact of one of the most famous intellectual partnerships of the 20th century.

Together, these items reveal the full dimensionality of Wells: novelist, futurist, social critic, and enduring cultural voice. As Gulotta notes, “Wells captured my imagination in a way that would never leave me.” His collection reflects that devotion.

Victor Gulotta is a Boston-area literary publicist and founder of Gulotta Communications. An archive of correspondence between Isaac Asimov and Victor Gulotta, which incorporates two original book manuscripts, is included in the Isaac Asimov Collection of Cushing Memorial Library at Texas A&M University.

Heritage Rare Books Signature Auction, December 15: https://historical.ha.com/c/search/results.zx?term=Victor+Gulotta+Collection+&dept=2541&auction_name=6323&mode=live

Michael Borden
Country Guy Productions
+1 617-306-9494
mhborden@gmail.com

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