The History of Mr. Polly is a 1910 comic novel by H. G. Wells.

Mr. Alfred Polly is a dyspeptic, miserably married shopkeeper in what he terms that "Beastly Silly Wheeze of a hole!"— Fishbourne, England.

Tired of his wife’s nagging and his dreary job he enjoys reading books of knightly endeavors.

Faced with the threat of bankruptcy, he concludes the only way to escape his frustrating existence is by burning his shop to the ground, and killing himself. Unexpected events, however, conspire at the last moment to lead the bewildered Mr. Polly to a bright new future – after he saves a life, fakes his death, and escapes to a life of heroism, hope and ultimate happiness.

Fans of H.G. Wells's famous, genre-spawning science fiction novels may be startled to read his bestselling The History of Mr. Polly. Its comic narrative is worlds away from the gloomy tone of War of the Worlds. This history is strictly, as Mr. Polly would put it in his creatively eccentric version of English, a series of "little accidentulous misadventures."