"The Man Who Could Work Miracles" is a British fantasy-comedy short story by H. G. Wells first published in 1898 in The Illustrated London News.

In common with later works falling within this definition, the story places a major fantasy premise (a wizard with enormous, virtually unlimited magic power) not in an exotic semi-medieval setting but in the drab routine daily life of suburban London, very familiar to Wells himself.

The all-knowing narrator thus tells the reader that he or she had died "a year ago" (the story was published in 1897) and was then resurrected - but has no recollection of anything special having happened.

[3] It continued to be adapted on several occasions for BBC Radio, including 1956 by Dennis Main Wilson and broadcast on New Year's Day.

[5] The idea of the world stopping rotating was taken up in 1972 by Lester del Rey, who suggested to three SF writers to write stories based on the assumption that God does it in order to unequivocally prove His existence to all humanity.

The three resulting stories were published together under the name "The Day the Sun Stood Still", comprising "A Chapter of Revelation" by Poul Anderson, "Things Which Are Caesar's" by Gordon R. Dickson and "Thomas the Proclaimer" by Robert Silverberg.

The dramatic radio broadcast appearing in the beginning of Silverberg's version indicates that, when writing, he was familiar with the Wells story: "Latest observatory reports confirm that no appreciable momentum effects could be detected as Earth shifted to its present period of rotation.

Scientists agree that the world's abrupt slowing on its axis should have produced a global catastrophe leading, perhaps, to the destruction of all life.