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Francis Spufford wheels his bicycle along Maybury Road and through Woking to consider the delight which HG Wells took in destroying a place he had only just recently arrived at. Woking, the land of the dead, where the Necropolis railway deposited its cargo in Europe's largest cemetery.

Wells would mount his new technological wonder – a tandem with his "wife" in the front – and weave his way through the town and its Surrey environs noting down places and people before destroying them all in print. But who was Wells at this point in his life and who were we? What kind of world was Woking and beyond and what was it he was so intent on destroying?

Joining Francis is science fiction chronicler Roger Luckhurst (Birkbeck University) and historian Astrid Svenson (Brunel University).

Producer: Laura Thomas.