======================================================================
=                            H._G._Wells                             =
======================================================================

                            Introduction
======================================================================
{{infobox writer
| image            = H.G. Wells by Beresford.jpg
| caption          = Photograph by George Charles Beresford, 1920
| birth_name       = Herbert George Wells
| birth_date       =
| birth_place      = Bromley, Kent, England
| death_date       =
| death_place      = London, England
| occupation       =
| alma_mater       = Royal College of Science
| years_active     = 1895-1946
| genre            = Science fiction (notably social science fiction)
| movement         = Social realism
| subject =
| spouse           =
| children         = 4, including G. P. and Anthony
| relatives        =
| signature        = H.G. Wells signature at the Hollywood Roosevelt
Hotel.svg
| notableworks     =
| module           =
}}
Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 - 13 August 1946) was an
English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty
novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included
works of social commentary, politics, history, popular science,
satire, biography, and autobiography. Wells is perhaps best known
today for his groundbreaking science fiction novels; he has been
called the "father of science fiction".

In addition to his fame as a writer, he was prominent in his lifetime
as a forward-looking, even prophetic social critic who devoted his
literary talents to the development of a progressive vision on a
global scale. As a futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and
foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons,
satellite television and something resembling the World Wide Web. His
science fiction imagined time travel, alien invasion, invisibility and
biological engineering before these subjects were common in the genre.
Brian Aldiss referred to Wells as the "Shakespeare of science
fiction", while Charles Fort called him a "wild talent".

Wells rendered his works convincing by instilling commonplace detail
alongside a single extraordinary assumption per workdubbed "Wells's
law"leading Joseph Conrad to hail him in 1898 with "O Realist of the
Fantastic!". His most notable science fiction works include 'The Time
Machine' (1895), which was his first novella, 'The Island of Doctor
Moreau' (1896), 'The Invisible Man' (1897), 'The War of the Worlds'
(1898), the military science fiction 'The War in the Air' (1907), and
the dystopian 'When the Sleeper Wakes' (1910). Novels of social
realism such as 'Kipps' (1905) and 'The History of Mr Polly' (1910),
which describe lower-middle-class English life, led to the suggestion
that he was a worthy successor to Charles Dickens, but Wells described
a range of social strata and even attempted, in 'Tono-Bungay' (1909),
a diagnosis of English society as a whole. Wells was nominated for the
Nobel Prize in Literature four times.

Wells's earliest specialised training was in biology, and his thinking
on ethical matters took place in a Darwinian context. He was also an
outspoken socialist from a young age, often (but not always, as at the
beginning of the First World War) sympathising with pacifist views. In
his later years, he wrote less fiction and more works expounding his
political and social views, sometimes giving his profession as that of
journalist.  Wells was a diabetic and co-founded the charity The
Diabetic Association (Diabetes UK) in 1934.


Early life
============
Herbert George Wells was born at Atlas House, 162 High Street in
Bromley, Kent, on 21 September 1866. Called "Bertie" by his family, he
was the fourth and last child of Joseph Wells, a former domestic
gardener, and at the time a shopkeeper and professional cricketer and
Sarah Neal, a former domestic servant. An inheritance had allowed the
family to acquire a shop in which they sold china and sporting goods,
although it failed to prosper in part because the stock was old and
worn out, and the location was poor. Joseph Wells managed to earn a
meagre income, but little of it came from the shop and he received an
unsteady amount of money from playing professional cricket for the
Kent county team.

A defining incident of young Wells's life was an accident in 1874 that
left him bedridden with a broken leg. To pass the time he began to
read books from the local library, brought to him by his father. He
soon became devoted to the other worlds and lives to which books gave
him access; they also stimulated his desire to write. Later that year
he entered Thomas Morley's Commercial Academy, a private school
founded in 1849, following the bankruptcy of Morley's earlier school.
The teaching was erratic, and the curriculum mostly focused, Wells
later said, on producing copperplate handwriting and doing the sort of
sums useful to tradesmen. Wells continued at Morley's Academy until
1880. In 1877, his father, Joseph Wells, fractured his thigh. The
accident effectively put an end to Joseph's career as a cricketer, and
his subsequent earnings as a shopkeeper were not enough to compensate
for the loss of the primary source of family income.

No longer able to support themselves financially, the family instead
sought to place their sons as apprentices in various occupations. From
1880 to 1883, Wells had an unhappy apprenticeship as a draper at
Hyde's Drapery Emporium in Southsea. His experiences at Hyde's, where
he worked a thirteen-hour day and slept in a dormitory with other
apprentices, later inspired his novels 'The Wheels of Chance', 'The
History of Mr Polly', and 'Kipps', which portray the life of a
draper's apprentice as well as providing a critique of society's
distribution of wealth.

Wells's parents had a turbulent marriage, owing primarily to his
mother being a Protestant and his father being a freethinker. When his
mother returned to work as a lady's maid (at Uppark, a country house
in West Sussex), one of the conditions of work was that she would not
be permitted to have living space for her husband and children.
Thereafter, she and Joseph lived separate lives, though they remained
faithful to each other and never divorced. As a consequence, Herbert's
personal troubles increased as he subsequently failed as a draper and
also, later, as a chemist's assistant. However, Uppark had a
magnificent library in which he immersed himself, reading many classic
works, including Plato's 'Republic', Thomas More's 'Utopia', and the
works of Daniel Defoe. When he became the first doyen of science
fiction as a distinct genre of fiction, Wells referenced Mary
Shelley's 'Frankenstein' in relation to his works, writing, "they
belong to a class of writing which includes the story of
'Frankenstein'."


Teacher
=========
In October 1879, Wells's mother arranged through a distant relative,
Arthur Williams, for him to join the National School at Wookey in
Somerset as a pupil-teacher, a senior pupil who acted as a teacher of
younger children. In December that year, however, Williams was
dismissed for irregularities in his qualifications and Wells was
returned to Uppark. After a short apprenticeship at a chemist in
nearby Midhurst and an even shorter stay as a boarder at Midhurst
Grammar School, he signed his apprenticeship papers at Hyde's. In
1883, Wells persuaded his parents to release him from the
apprenticeship, taking an opportunity offered by Midhurst Grammar
School again to become a pupil-teacher; his proficiency in Latin and
science during his earlier short stay had been remembered.

The years he spent in Southsea had been the most miserable of his life
to that point, but his good fortune in securing a position at Midhurst
Grammar School meant that Wells could continue his self-education in
earnest. The following year, Wells won a scholarship to the Normal
School of Science (later the Royal College of Science in South
Kensington, which became part of Imperial College London) in London,
studying biology under Thomas Henry Huxley. As an alumnus, he later
helped to set up the Royal College of Science Association, of which he
became the first president in 1909. Wells studied in his new school
until 1887, with a weekly allowance of 21 shillings (a guinea) thanks
to his scholarship. This ought to have been a comfortable sum of money
(at the time many working class families had "round about a pound a
week" as their entire household income), yet in his 'Experiment in
Autobiography' Wells speaks of constantly being hungry, and indeed
photographs of him at the time show a youth who is very thin and
malnourished.

He soon entered the debating society of the school. These years mark
the beginning of his interest in a possible reformation of society. At
first approaching the subject through Plato's 'Republic', he soon
turned to contemporary ideas of socialism as expressed by the recently
formed Fabian Society and free lectures delivered at Kelmscott House,
the home of William Morris. He was also among the founders of 'The
Science School Journal', a school magazine that allowed him to express
his views on literature and society, as well as trying his hand at
fiction; a precursor to his novel 'The Time Machine' was published in
the journal under the title "The Chronic Argonauts". The school year
1886-87 was the last year of his studies.

During 1888, Wells stayed in Stoke-on-Trent, living in Basford. The
unique environment of The Potteries was certainly an inspiration. He
wrote in a letter to a friend from the area that "the district made an
immense impression on me". The inspiration for some of his
descriptions in 'The War of the Worlds' is thought to have come from
his short time spent here, seeing the iron foundry furnaces burn over
the city, shooting huge red light into the skies. His stay in The
Potteries also resulted in the macabre short story "The Cone" (1895,
contemporaneous with his famous 'The Time Machine'), set in the north
of the city.

After teaching for some time--he was briefly on the staff of Holt
Academy in Wales--Wells found it necessary to supplement his knowledge
relating to educational principles and methodology and entered the
College of Preceptors (College of Teachers). He later received his
Licentiate and Fellowship FCP diplomas from the college. It was not
until 1890 that Wells earned a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology
from the University of London External Programme. In 1889-90, he
managed to find a post as a teacher at Henley House School in London,
where he taught A. A. Milne (whose father ran the school). His first
published work was a 'Text-Book of Biology' in two volumes (1893).

Upon leaving the Normal School of Science, Wells was left without a
source of income. His aunt Mary--his father's sister-in-law--invited
him to stay with her for a while, which solved his immediate problem
of accommodation. During his stay at his aunt's, he grew increasingly
interested in her daughter, Isabel, whom he later courted and married.
To earn money, he began writing short humorous articles for journals
such as 'The Pall Mall Gazette', later collecting these in 'Select
Conversations with an Uncle' (1895) and 'Certain Personal Matters'
(1897). So prolific did Wells become at this mode of journalism that
many of his early pieces remain unidentified. According to David C.
Smith,  Most of Wells's occasional pieces have not been collected, and
many have not even been identified as his. Wells did not automatically
receive the byline his reputation demanded until after 1896 or so .
... As a result, many of his early pieces are unknown. It is obvious
that many early Wells items have been lost.  His success with these
shorter pieces encouraged him to write book-length work, and he
published his first novel, 'The Time Machine', in 1895.


Personal life
===============
In 1891, Wells married his cousin Isabel Mary Wells (1865-1931; from
1902 Isabel Mary Smith). The couple agreed to separate in 1894, when
he had fallen in love with one of his students, Amy Catherine Robbins
(1872-1927; later known as Jane), with whom he moved to Woking,
Surrey, in May 1895. They lived in a rented house, 'Lynton' (now No.
141), Maybury Road, in the town centre for just under 18 months and
married at St Pancras register office in October 1895. His short
period in Woking was perhaps the most creative and productive of his
whole writing career; while there, he planned and wrote 'The War of
the Worlds' and 'The Time Machine', completed 'The Island of Doctor
Moreau', wrote and published 'The Wonderful Visit' and 'The Wheels of
Chance', and began writing two other early books, 'When the Sleeper
Wakes' and 'Love and Mr Lewisham'.


In late summer 1896, Wells and Jane moved to a larger house in
Worcester Park, near Kingston upon Thames, for two years; this lasted
until his poor health took them to Sandgate, near Folkestone, where he
constructed a large family home, Spade House, in 1901. He had two sons
with Jane: George Philip (known as "Gip"; 1901-1985) and Frank Richard
(1903-1982) (grandfather of film director Simon Wells). Jane died on 6
October 1927, in Dunmow, at the age of 55, which left Wells
devastated. She was cremated at Golders Green, with friends of the
couple present including George Bernard Shaw.

Wells had multiple love affairs. Dorothy Richardson was a friend with
whom he had a brief affair which led to a pregnancy and miscarriage,
in 1907. Wells's wife had been a schoolmate of Richardson. In December
1909, he had a daughter, Anna-Jane, with the writer Amber Reeves,
whose parents, William and Maud Pember Reeves, he had met through the
Fabian Society. Amber had married the barrister G. R. Blanco White in
July of that year, as co-arranged by Wells. After Beatrice Webb voiced
disapproval of Wells's "sordid intrigue" with Amber, he responded by
lampooning Beatrice Webb and her husband Sidney Webb in his 1911 novel
'The New Machiavelli' as 'Altiora and Oscar Bailey', a pair of
short-sighted, bourgeois manipulators. Between 1910 and 1913, novelist
Elizabeth von Arnim was one of his mistresses. In 1914, he had a son,
Anthony West (1914-1987), by the novelist and feminist Rebecca West,
26 years his junior. In 1920-21, and intermittently until his death,
he had a love affair with  the American birth control activist
Margaret Sanger.

Between 1924 and 1933, he partnered with the 22-year-younger Dutch
adventurer and writer Odette Keun, with whom he lived in 'Lou Pidou',
a house they built together in Grasse, France. Wells dedicated his
longest book to her ('The World of William Clissold', 1926). When
visiting Maxim Gorky in Russia 1920, he had slept with Gorky's
mistress Moura Budberg, then still Countess Benckendorf and 27 years
his junior. In 1933, when she left Gorky and emigrated to London,
their relationship renewed and she cared for him through his final
illness. Wells repeatedly asked her to marry him, but Budberg strongly
rejected his proposals.

In 'Experiment in Autobiography' (1934), Wells wrote: "I was never a
great amorist, though I have loved several people very deeply". David
Lodge's novel 'A Man of Parts' (2011)a 'narrative based on factual
sources' (author's note)gives a convincing and generally sympathetic
account of Wells's relations with the women mentioned above, and
others.


Artist
========
One of the ways that Wells expressed himself was through his drawings
and sketches. One common location for these was the endpapers and
title pages of his own diaries, and they covered a wide variety of
topics, from political commentary to his feelings toward his literary
contemporaries and his current romantic interests. During his marriage
to Amy Catherine, whom he nicknamed Jane, he drew a considerable
number of pictures, many of them being overt comments on their
marriage. During this period, he called these pictures "picshuas".
These picshuas have been the topic of study by Wells scholars for many
years, and in 2006, a book was published on the subject.


Writer
========
Some of his early novels, called "scientific romances", invented
several themes now classic in science fiction in such works as 'The
Time Machine', 'The Island of Doctor Moreau', 'The Invisible Man',
'The War of the Worlds', 'When the Sleeper Wakes', and 'The First Men
in the Moon'. He also wrote realistic novels that received critical
acclaim, including 'Kipps' and a critique of English culture during
the Edwardian period, 'Tono-Bungay'. Wells also wrote dozens of short
stories and novellas, including, "The Flowering of the Strange
Orchid", which helped bring the full impact of Darwin's revolutionary
botanical ideas to a wider public, and was followed by many later
successes such as "The Country of the Blind" (1904).

Writer James E. Gunn contended that one of Wells's major contributions
to the science fiction genre was his approach, referring to it as his
"new system of ideas". Gunn opined that an author should always strive
to make the story as credible as possible, even if both the writer and
the reader knew certain elements are impossible, allowing the reader
to accept the ideas as something that could really happen, today
referred to as "the plausible impossible" and "suspension of
disbelief". While neither invisibility nor time travel was new in
speculative fiction, Wells added a sense of realism to the concepts
which the readers were not familiar with. He conceived the idea of
using a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposely and
selectively forwards or backwards in time. The term "time machine",
coined by Wells, is almost universally used to refer to such a
vehicle. He explained that while writing 'The Time Machine', he
realized that "the more impossible the story I had to tell, the more
ordinary must be the setting, and the circumstances in which I now set
the Time Traveller were all that I could imagine of solid upper-class
comforts." In "Wells's Law", a science fiction story should contain
only a single extraordinary assumption. Therefore, as justifications
for the impossible, he employed scientific ideas and theories. Wells's
best-known statement of the "law" appears in his introduction to a
collection of his works published in 1934:



Dr. Griffin / The Invisible Man is a brilliant research scientist who
discovers a method of invisibility, but finds himself unable to
reverse the process. An enthusiast of random and irresponsible
violence, Griffin has become an iconic character in horror fiction.
'The Island of Doctor Moreau' sees a shipwrecked man left on the
island home of Doctor Moreau, a mad scientist who creates human-like
hybrid beings from animals via vivisection. The earliest depiction of
uplift, the novel deals with a number of philosophical themes,
including pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity, and
human interference with nature. In 'The First Men in the Moon' Wells
used the idea of radio communication between astronomical objects, a
plot point inspired by Nikola Tesla's claim that he had received radio
signals from Mars. In addition to science fiction, Wells produced work
dealing with mythological beings like an angel in 'The Wonderful
Visit' (1895) and a mermaid in 'The Sea Lady' (1902).

Though 'Tono-Bungay' is not a science-fiction novel, radioactive decay
plays a small but consequential role in it. Radioactive decay plays a
much larger role in 'The World Set Free' (1914), a book dedicated to
Frederick Soddy who would receive a Nobel for proving the existence of
radioactive isotopes. This book contains what is surely Wells's
biggest prophetic "hit", with the first description of a nuclear
weapon (which he termed "atomic bombs"). Scientists of the day were
well aware that the natural decay of radium releases energy at a slow
rate over thousands of years. The 'rate' of release is too slow to
have practical utility, but the 'total amount' released is huge.
Wells's novel revolves around an (unspecified) invention that
accelerates the process of radioactive decay, producing bombs that
explode with no more than the force of ordinary high explosives--but
which "continue to explode" for days on end. "Nothing could have been
more obvious to the people of the earlier twentieth century, than the
rapidity with which war was becoming impossible ... [but] they did not
see it until the atomic bombs burst in their fumbling hands". In 1932,
the physicist and conceiver of nuclear chain reaction Leó Szilárd read
'The World Set Free' (the same year Sir James Chadwick discovered the
neutron), a book which he wrote in his memoirs had made "a very great
impression on me". In 1934, Szilárd took his ideas for a chain
reaction to the British War Office and later the Admiralty, assigning
his patent to the Admiralty to keep the news from reaching the notice
of the wider scientific community. He wrote, "Knowing what this [a
chain reaction] would mean--and I knew it because I had read H.G.
Wells--I did not want this patent to become public."

Wells also wrote non-fiction. His first non-fiction bestseller was
'Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress
upon Human Life and Thought' (1901). When originally serialised in a
magazine it was subtitled "An Experiment in Prophecy", and is
considered his most explicitly futuristic work. It offered the
immediate political message of the privileged sections of society
continuing to bar capable men from other classes from advancement
until war would force a need to employ those most able, rather than
the traditional upper classes, as leaders. Anticipating what the world
would be like in the year 2000, the book is interesting both for its
hits (trains and cars resulting in the dispersion of populations from
cities to suburbs; moral restrictions declining as men and women seek
greater sexual freedom; the defeat of German militarism, and the
existence of a European Union) and its misses (he did not expect
successful aircraft before 1950, and averred that "my imagination
refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocate its
crew and founder at sea").

His bestselling two-volume work, 'The Outline of History' (1920),
began a new era of popularised world history. It received a mixed
critical response from professional historians. However, it was very
popular amongst the general population and made Wells a rich man. Many
other authors followed with "Outlines" of their own in other subjects.
He reprised his 'Outline' in 1922 with a much shorter popular work, 'A
Short History of the World', a history book praised by Albert
Einstein, and two long efforts, 'The Science of Life' (1930)--written
with his son G. P. Wells and evolutionary biologist  Julian Huxley,
and 'The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind' (1931). The "Outlines"
became sufficiently common for James Thurber to parody the trend in
his humorous essay, "An Outline of Scientists"--indeed, Wells's
'Outline of History' remains in print with a new 2005 edition, while
'A Short History of the World' has been re-edited (2006).

From quite early in Wells's career, he sought a better way to organise
society and wrote a number of Utopian novels. The first of these was
'A Modern Utopia' (1905), which shows a worldwide utopia with "no
imports but meteorites, and no exports at all"; two travellers from
our world fall into its alternate history. The others usually begin
with the world rushing to catastrophe, until people realise a better
way of living: whether by mysterious gases from a comet causing people
to behave rationally and abandoning a European war ('In the Days of
the Comet' (1906)), or a world council of scientists taking over, as
in 'The Shape of Things to Come' (1933, which he later adapted for the
1936 Alexander Korda film, 'Things to Come'). This depicted, all too
accurately, the impending World War, with cities being destroyed by
aerial bombs. He also portrayed the rise of fascist dictators in 'The
Autocracy of Mr Parham' (1930) and 'The Holy Terror' (1939). 'Men Like
Gods' (1923) is also a utopian novel. Wells in this period was
regarded as an enormously influential figure; the literary critic
Malcolm Cowley stated: "by the time he was forty, his influence was
wider than any other living English writer".

Wells contemplates the ideas of nature and nurture and questions
humanity in books such as 'The First Men in the Moon', where nature is
completely suppressed by nurture, and 'The Island of Doctor Moreau',
where the strong presence of nature represents a threat to a civilized
society. Not all his scientific romances ended in a Utopia, and Wells
also wrote a dystopian novel, 'When the Sleeper Wakes' (1899,
rewritten as 'The Sleeper Awakes', 1910), which pictures a future
society where the classes have become more and more separated, leading
to a revolt of the masses against the rulers. 'The Island of Doctor
Moreau' is even darker. The narrator, having been trapped on an island
of animals vivisected (unsuccessfully) into human beings, eventually
returns to England; like Gulliver on his return from the Houyhnhnms,
he finds himself unable to shake off the perceptions of his fellow
humans as barely civilised beasts, slowly reverting to their animal
natures.

Wells also wrote the preface for the first edition of W. N. P.
Barbellion's diaries, 'The Journal of a Disappointed Man', published
in 1919. Since "Barbellion" was the real author's pen name, many
reviewers believed Wells to have been the true author of the
'Journal'; Wells always denied this, despite being full of praise for
the diaries.

In 1927, a Canadian teacher and writer Florence Deeks unsuccessfully
sued Wells for infringement of copyright and breach of trust, claiming
that much of 'The Outline of History' had been plagiarised from her
unpublished manuscript, 'The Web of the World's Romance', which had
spent nearly nine months in the hands of Wells's Canadian publisher,
Macmillan Canada. However, it was sworn on oath at the trial that the
manuscript remained in Toronto in the safekeeping of Macmillan, and
that Wells did not even know it existed, let alone seen it. The court
found no proof of copying, and decided the similarities were due to
the fact that the books had similar nature and both writers had access
to the same sources.  The case went on appeal from the Canadian courts
to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, at that time the
highest court of appeal for the British Empire, which dismissed the
appeal in Deeks v Wells. In 2000, A. B. McKillop, a professor of
history at Carleton University, produced a book on the case, 'The
Spinster & The Prophet: Florence Deeks, H.G. Wells, and the
Mystery of the Purloined Past'. According to McKillop, the lawsuit was
unsuccessful due to the prejudice against a woman suing a well-known
and famous male author, and he paints a detailed story based on the
circumstantial evidence of the case. In 2004, Denis N. Magnusson,
professor emeritus of the Faculty of Law, Queen's University, Ontario,
published an article on 'Deeks v. Wells'. This re-examines the case in
relation to McKillop's book. While having some sympathy for Deeks, he
argues that she had a weak case that was not well presented, and
though she may have met with sexism from her lawyers, she received a
fair trial, adding that the law applied is essentially the same law
that would be applied to a similar case today (i.e., 2004).

In 1933, Wells predicted in 'The Shape of Things to Come' that the
world war he feared would begin in January 1940, a prediction which
ultimately came true four months early, in September 1939, with the
outbreak of World War II. In 1936, before the Royal Institution, Wells
called for the compilation of a constantly growing and changing World
Encyclopaedia, to be reviewed by outstanding authorities and made
accessible to every human being. He also presented on his conception
of a world encyclopedia at the World Congress of Universal
Documentation in Paris in 1937.

In 1938, he published a collection of essays on the future
organisation of knowledge and education, 'World Brain', including the
essay "The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopaedia".

Prior to 1933, Wells's books were widely read in Germany and Austria,
and most of his science fiction works had been translated shortly
after publication. By 1933, he had attracted the attention of German
officials because of his criticism of the political situation in
Germany, and on 10 May 1933, Wells's books were burned by the Nazi
youth in Berlin's Opernplatz, and his works were banned from libraries
and book stores. Wells, as president of PEN International (Poets,
Essayists, Novelists), angered the Nazis by overseeing the expulsion
of the German PEN club from the international body in 1934 following
the German PEN's refusal to admit non-Aryan writers to its membership.
At a PEN conference in Ragusa, Wells refused to yield to Nazi
sympathisers who demanded that the exiled author Ernst Toller be
prevented from speaking. Near the end of World War II, Allied forces
discovered that the SS had compiled lists of people slated for
immediate arrest during the invasion of Britain in the abandoned
Operation Sea Lion, with Wells included in the alphabetical list of
"The Black Book".


Wartime works
===============
Seeking a more structured way to play war games, Wells wrote 'Floor
Games' (1911) followed by 'Little Wars' (1913), which set out rules
for fighting battles with toy soldiers (miniatures). A pacifist prior
to the First World War, Wells stated "how much better is this amiable
miniature [war] than the real thing". According to Wells, the idea of
the game developed from a visit by his friend Jerome K. Jerome. After
dinner, Jerome began shooting down toy soldiers with a toy cannon and
Wells joined in to compete.

During August 1914, immediately after the outbreak of the First World
War, Wells published a number of articles in London newspapers that
subsequently appeared as a book entitled 'The War That Will End War'.
He coined the expression with the idealistic belief that the result of
the war would make a future conflict impossible. Wells blamed the
Central Powers for the coming of the war and argued that only the
defeat of German militarism could bring about an end to war. Wells
used the shorter form of the phrase, "the war to end war", in 'In the
Fourth Year' (1918), in which he noted that the phrase "got into
circulation" in the second half of 1914. In fact, it had become one of
the most common catchphrases of the war.

In 1918, Wells worked for the British War Propaganda Bureau, also
called Wellington House. Wells was also one of fifty-three leading
British authors -- a number that included Rudyard Kipling, Thomas
Hardy and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- who signed their names to the
"Authors' Declaration." This manifesto declared that the German
invasion of Belgium had been a brutal crime, and that Britain "could
not without dishonour have refused to take part in the present war".


Travels to Russia and the Soviet Union
========================================
Wells visited Russia three times: 1914, 1920 and 1934. After his
visits to Petrograd and Moscow, in January 1914, he came back to
England, "a staunch Russophile". His views were recorded in a
newspaper article, "Russia and England: A Study on Contrasts",
published in 'The Daily News' on 1 February 1941, and in his novel
'Joan and Peter' (1918).  During his second visit, he saw his old
friend Maxim Gorky and with Gorky's help, met Vladimir Lenin. In his
book 'Russia in the Shadows', Wells portrayed Russia as recovering
from a total social collapse, "the completest that has ever happened
to any modern social organisation". On 23 July 1934, after visiting
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Wells went to the Soviet Union
and interviewed Joseph Stalin for three hours for the 'New Statesman'
magazine, which was extremely rare at that time. He told Stalin how he
had seen 'the happy faces of healthy people' in contrast with his
previous visit to Moscow in 1920. However, he also criticised the
lawlessness, class discrimination, state violence, and absence of free
expression. Stalin enjoyed the conversation and replied accordingly.
As the chairman of the London-based PEN International, which protected
the rights of authors to write without being intimidated, Wells hoped
by his trip to USSR, he could win Stalin over by force of argument.
Before he left, he realised that no reform was to happen in the near
future.


Final years
=============
Wells's greatest literary output occurred before the First World War,
which was lamented by younger authors whom he had influenced. In this
connection, George Orwell described Wells as "too sane to understand
the modern world", and "since 1920 he has squandered his talents in
slaying paper dragons." G. K. Chesterton quipped: "Mr Wells is a born
storyteller who has sold his birthright for a pot of message".

Wells had diabetes, and was a co-founder in 1934 of The Diabetic
Association (now Diabetes UK, the leading charity for people with
diabetes in the UK).

On 28 October 1940, on the radio station KTSA in San Antonio, Texas,
Wells took part in a radio interview with Orson Welles, who two years
previously had performed a famous radio adaptation of 'The War of the
Worlds'. During the interview, by Charles C Shaw, a KTSA radio host,
Wells admitted his surprise at the sensation that resulted from the
broadcast but acknowledged his debt to Welles for increasing sales of
one of his "more obscure" titles.


Death
=======
Wells died on 13 August 1946, aged 79, at his home at 13 Hanover
Terrace, overlooking Regent's Park, London. In his preface to the 1941
edition of 'The War in the Air', Wells had stated that his epitaph
should be: "I told you so. You 'damned' fools." Wells's body was
cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 16 August 1946; his ashes
were subsequently scattered into the English Channel at Old Harry
Rocks, the most eastern point of the Jurassic Coast and about 3.5
miles (5.6 km) from Swanage in Dorset.

A commemorative blue plaque in his honour was installed by the Greater
London Council at his home in Regent's Park in 1966.


                              Futurist
======================================================================
A futurist and "visionary", Wells foresaw the advent of aircraft,
tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television, and
something resembling the World Wide Web. Asserting that "Wells's
visions of the future remain unsurpassed", John Higgs, author of
'Stranger Than We Can Imagine: Making Sense of the Twentieth Century',
states that in the late 19th century Wells "saw the coming century
clearer than anyone else. He anticipated wars in the air, the sexual
revolution, motorised transport causing the growth of suburbs and a
proto-Wikipedia he called the "world brain". In his novel 'The World
Set Free', he imagined an "atomic bomb" of terrifying power that would
be dropped from aeroplanes. This was an extraordinary insight for an
author writing in 1913, and it made a deep impression on Winston
Churchill."

{{blockquote|Many readers have hailed H.G. Wells and George Orwell as
special kinds of writers, ones endowed with remarkable prescriptive
and prophetic powers. Wells was the twentieth-century prototype of
this literary vatic figure: he invented the role, explored its
possibilities, especially through new forms of prose and new ways to
publish, and defined its boundaries. His impact on his culture was
profound; as George Orwell wrote, "The minds of all of us, and
therefore the physical world, would be perceptibly different if Wells
had never existed."|'The Author as Cultural Hero: H.G. Wells and
George Orwell'.}}

In 2011, Wells was among a group of science fiction writers featured
in the 'Prophets of Science Fiction' series, a show produced and
hosted by film director Sir Ridley Scott, which depicts how
predictions influenced the development of scientific advancements by
inspiring many readers to assist in transforming those futuristic
visions into everyday reality. In a 2013 review of 'The Time Machine'
for the 'New Yorker' magazine, Brad Leithauser writes, "At the base of
Wells's great visionary exploit is this rational, ultimately
scientific attempt to tease out the potential future consequences of
present conditions--not as they might arise in a few years, or even
decades, but millennia hence, epochs hence. He is world literature's
Great Extrapolator. Like no other fiction writer before him, he
embraced "deep time".


                          Political views
======================================================================
Wells was a socialist and a member of the Fabian Society. He stood as
a Labour Party candidate for London University in the 1922 and 1923
general elections.

Winston Churchill was an avid reader of Wells's books; after they
first met in 1902, they kept in touch until Wells died in 1946. As a
junior minister, Churchill borrowed lines from Wells for one of his
most famous early landmark speeches in 1906; as Prime Minister, the
phrase "the gathering storm"--used by Churchill to describe the rise
of Nazi Germany--had been written by Wells in 'The War of the Worlds',
which depicts an attack on Britain by Martians. Wells's extensive
writings on equality and human rights, most notably his most
influential work, 'The Rights of Man' (1940), laid the groundwork for
the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by
the United Nations shortly after his death.

His efforts regarding the League of Nations, on which he collaborated
on the project with Leonard Woolf with the booklets 'The Idea of a
League of Nations', 'Prolegomena to the Study of World Organization',
and 'The Way of the League of Nations',  became a disappointment as
the organization turned out to be a weak one unable to prevent the
Second World War, which itself occurred towards the very end of his
life and only increased the pessimistic side of his nature. In his
last book 'Mind at the End of Its Tether' (1945), he considered the
idea that humanity being replaced by another species might not be a
bad idea. He referred to the era between the two World Wars as "The
Age of Frustration".

Wells was initially an opponent of Zionism. In 'In the Days of the
Comet', Jews are described as parasites on European society. However,
Wells later became a strong supporter of the establishment of a Jewish
state in response to the Holocaust.

He was a member of The Other Club, a London dining club.


                          Religious views
======================================================================
Wells's views on God and religion changed over his lifetime. Early in
his life, he distanced himself from Christianity, and later from
theism; finally, late in life, he was essentially atheistic. Martin
Gardner summarises this progression:

In 'God the Invisible King' (1917), Wells wrote that his idea of God
did not draw upon the traditional religions of the world:  Later in
the work, he aligns himself with a "renascent or modern religion ...
neither atheist nor Buddhist nor Mohammedan nor Christian ... [that]
he has found growing up in himself".

Of Christianity, he said: "it is not now true for me. ... Every
believing Christian is, I am sure, my spiritual brother ... but if
systemically I called myself a Christian I feel that to most men I
should imply too much and so tell a lie". Of other world religions, he
writes: "All these religions are true for me as Canterbury Cathedral
is a true thing and as a Swiss chalet is a true thing. There they are,
and they have served a purpose, they have worked. Only they are not
true for me to live in them. ... They do not work for me". In 'The
Fate of Homo Sapiens' (1939), Wells criticised almost all world
religions and philosophies, stating "there is no creed, no way of
living left in the world at all, that really meets the needs of the
time.... When we come to look at them coolly and dispassionately, all
the main religions, patriotic, moral and customary systems in which
human beings are sheltering today, appear to be in a state of jostling
and mutually destructive movement, like the houses and palaces and
other buildings of some vast, sprawling city overtaken by a
landslide."

Wells's opposition to organised religion reached a fever pitch in 1943
with publication of his book 'Crux Ansata', subtitled "An Indictment
of the Roman Catholic Church" in which he attacked Catholicism, Pope
Pius XII and called for the bombing of the city of Rome.


                   Literary influence and legacy
======================================================================
The science fiction historian John Clute describes Wells as "the most
important writer the genre has yet seen", and notes his work has been
central to both British and American science fiction. Science fiction
author and critic Algis Budrys said Wells "remains the outstanding
expositor of both the hope, and the despair, which are embodied in the
technology and which are the major facts of life in our world". He was
nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1921, 1932, 1935, and
1946. Wells so influenced real exploration of space that impact
craters on Mars and the Moon were named after him:

{{blockquote|Wells's genius was his ability to create a stream of
brand new, wholly original stories out of thin air. Originality was
Wells's calling card. In a six-year stretch from 1895 to 1901, he
produced a stream of what he called "scientific romance" novels, which
included 'The Time Machine', 'The Island of Doctor Moreau', 'The
Invisible Man', 'The War of the Worlds' and 'The First Men in the
Moon'. This was a dazzling display of new thought, endlessly copied
since. A book like 'The War of the Worlds' inspired every one of the
thousands of alien invasion stories that followed. It burned its way
into the psyche of mankind and changed us all forever.|source=Cultural
historian John Higgs, 'The Guardian'.}}

In the United Kingdom, Wells's work was a key model for the British
"scientific romance", and other writers in that mode, such as Olaf
Stapledon, J. D. Beresford, S. Fowler Wright, and Naomi Mitchison, all
drew on Wells's example. Wells was also an important influence on
British science fiction of the period after the Second World War, with
Arthur C. Clarke and Brian Aldiss expressing strong admiration for
Wells's work. A self-declared fan of Wells, John Wyndham, author of
'The Day of the Triffids' and 'The Midwich Cuckoos', echoes Wells's
obsession with catastrophe and its aftermath. His early work (pre
1920) made Wells the literary hero of dystopian novelist George
Orwell. Among contemporary British science fiction writers, Stephen
Baxter, Christopher Priest and Adam Roberts have all acknowledged
Wells's influence on their writing; all three are vice-presidents of
the H. G. Wells Society. He also had a strong influence on British
scientist J. B. S. Haldane, who wrote 'Daedalus; or, Science and the
Future' (1924), "The Last Judgement" and "On Being the Right Size"
from the essay collection 'Possible Worlds' (1927), and 'Biological
Possibilities for the Human Species in the Next Ten Thousand Years'
(1963), which are speculations about the future of human evolution and
life on other planets. Haldane gave several lectures about these
topics which in turn influenced other science fiction writers.

In the United States, Hugo Gernsback reprinted most of Wells's work in
the pulp magazine 'Amazing Stories', regarding Wells's work as "texts
of central importance to the self-conscious new genre". Later American
writers such as Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Carl Sagan,
and Ursula K. Le Guin all recalled being influenced by Wells.

Sinclair Lewis's early novels were strongly influenced by Wells's
realistic social novels, such as 'The History of Mr Polly'; Lewis also
named his first son Wells after the author. Lewis nominated H.G. Wells
for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932.

In an interview with 'The Paris Review', Vladimir Nabokov described
Wells as his favourite writer when he was a boy and "a great artist".
He went on to cite 'The Passionate Friends', 'Ann Veronica', 'The Time
Machine', and 'The Country of the Blind' as superior to anything else
written by Wells's British contemporaries. Nabokov said: "His
sociological cogitations can be safely ignored, of course, but his
romances and fantasies are superb."
Jorge Luis Borges wrote many short pieces on Wells in which he
demonstrates a deep familiarity with much of Wells's work. While
Borges wrote several critical reviews, including a mostly negative
review of Wells's film 'Things to Come', he regularly treated Wells as
a canonical figure of fantastic literature. Late in his life, Borges
included 'The Invisible Man' and 'The Time Machine' in his 'Prologue
to a Personal Library', a curated list of 100 great works of
literature that he undertook at the behest of the Argentine publishing
house Emecé. Wells also inspired writers of continental European
speculative fiction such as Karel Čapek, Mikhail Bulgakov and Yevgeny
Zamyatin.

In 2021, Wells was one of six British writers commemorated on a series
of UK postage stamps issued by Royal Mail to celebrate British science
fiction. Six classic science fiction novels were depicted, one from
each author, with 'The Time Machine' chosen to represent Wells.


Literary
==========
* The superhuman protagonist of J. D. Beresford's 1911 novel, 'The
Hampdenshire Wonder', Victor Stott, was based on Wells.
* In M. P. Shiel's short story "The Primate of the Rose" (1928), there
is an unpleasant womaniser named E.P. Crooks, who was written as a
parody of Wells. Wells had attacked Shiel's 'Prince Zaleski' when it
was published in 1895, and this was Shiel's response. Wells praised
Shiel's 'The Purple Cloud' (1901); in turn Shiel expressed admiration
for Wells, referring to him at a speech to the Horsham Rotary Club in
1933 as "my friend Mr. Wells".
* In C. S. Lewis's novel 'That Hideous Strength' (1945), the character
Jules is a caricature of Wells, and much of Lewis's science fiction
was written both under the influence of Wells and as an antithesis to
his work (or, as he put it, an "exorcism" of the influence it had on
him).
* In Brian Aldiss's novella 'The Saliva Tree' (1966), Wells has a
small off-screen guest role.
* In Saul Bellow's novel 'Mr. Sammler's Planet' (1970), Wells is one
of several historical figures the protagonist met when he was a young
man.
* In 'The Dancers at the End of Time' by Michael Moorcock (1976) Wells
has an important part.
* In 'The Map of Time' (2008) by Spanish author Félix J. Palma; Wells
is one of several historical characters.
* Wells is one of the two Georges in Paul Levinson's 2013 time-travel
novelette, "Ian, George, and George", published in 'Analog' magazine.
* David Lodge's novel 'A Man of Parts' (2011) is a literary retelling
of the life of Wells.
* H. G. Wells is a member of a fellowship of vampire hunters set in
the year 1888 in the novel 'Modern Marvels- Viktoriana' (2013) written
by Wayne Reinagel. The fellowship includes Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan
Poe, Jules Verne, Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, Nikola Tesla, Harry
Houdini and H. Rider Haggard.


Dramatic
==========
* Rod Taylor portrays Wells in the 1960 science fiction film 'The Time
Machine' (based on the novel of the same name), in which Wells uses
his time machine to try to find his Utopian society.
* Malcolm McDowell portrays Wells in the 1979 science fiction film
'Time After Time', in which Wells uses a time machine to pursue Jack
the Ripper to the present day. In the film, Wells meets "Amy" in the
future who then returns to 1893 to become his second wife Amy
Catherine Robbins.
* Wells is portrayed in the 1985 story 'Timelash' from the 22nd season
of the BBC science-fiction television series 'Doctor Who'. In this
story, Herbert, an enthusiastic temporary companion to the Doctor, is
revealed to be a young H.G. Wells. The plot is loosely based upon the
themes and characters of 'The Time Machine' with references to 'The
War of the Worlds', 'The Invisible Man' and 'The Island of Doctor
Moreau'. The story jokingly suggests that Wells's inspiration for his
later novels came from his adventure with the Sixth Doctor.
* In the BBC2 anthology series 'Encounters' about imagined meetings
between historical figures, 'Beautiful Lies', by Paul Pender (15
August 1992) centred on an acrimonious dinner party attended by Wells
(Richard Todd), George Orwell (Jon Finch), and William Empson (Patrick
Ryecart).
* The character of Wells also appeared in several episodes of 'Lois
& Clark: The New Adventures of Superman' (1993-1997), usually
pitted against the time-travelling villain known as Tempus (Lane
Davies). Wells's younger self was played by Terry Kiser, and the older
Wells was played by Hamilton Camp.
* In the British TV miniseries 'The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells'
(2001), several of Wells's short stories are dramatised but are
adapted using Wells himself (Tom Ward) as the main protagonist in each
story.
* In the Disney Channel Original Series 'Phil of the Future', which
centres on time-travel, the present-day high school that the main
characters attend is named "H.G. Wells".
* In the 2006 television docudrama 'H.G. Wells: War with the World',
Wells is played by Michael Sheen.
* Television episode "World's End" of Cold Case (2007) is about how
the discovery of human remains in the bottom of a well leads to the
reinvestigation of the case of a housewife who went missing during
Orson Welles' radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds".
* On the science fiction television series 'Warehouse 13' (2009-2014),
there is a female version Helena G. Wells. When she appeared, she
explained that her brother was her front for her writing because a
female science fiction author would not be accepted.
* Comedian Paul F. Tompkins portrays a fictional Wells as the host of
'The Dead Authors Podcast', wherein Wells uses his time machine to
bring dead authors (played by other comedians) to the present and
interview them.
* H.G. Wells as a young boy appears in the 'Legends of Tomorrow'
episode "The Magnificent Eight". In this story, the boy Wells is dying
of consumption but is cured by a time-travelling Martin Stein.
* In the four-part series 'The Nightmare Worlds of H.G. Wells' (2016),
Wells is played by Ray Winstone.
* In the 2017 television series version of 'Time After Time', based on
the 1979 film, H.G. Wells is portrayed by Freddie Stroma.
* In the 2019 television adaptation of 'The War of the Worlds', the
character of 'George', played by Rafe Spall, demonstrates a number of
elements of Wells's own life, including his estrangement from his wife
and unmarried co-habitation with the character of 'Amy'.
* Peter Mikhail portrays Wells twice in the Canadian television period
detective series Murdoch Mysteries, in episode 8 of season 3 "Future
Imperfect" (April 6, 2010) and in episode 11 of season 13 "Staring
Blindly into the Future" (January 13, 2020).
* Wells is played by Nick Cave in the 2021 film 'The Electrical Life
of Louis Wain'.


                          Film adaptations
======================================================================
The novels and short stories of H.G. Wells have been adapted for
cinema. These include 'Island of Lost Souls' (1932), 'The Invisible
Man' (1933), 'Things to Come' (1936), 'The Man Who Could Work
Miracles' (1937), 'The War of the Worlds' (1953), 'The Time Machine'
(1960), 'First Men in the Moon' (1964), 'The Island of Dr. Moreau'
(1977), ' Time After Time ' (1979), 'The Island of Dr. Moreau' (1996),
'The Time Machine' (2002) and 'War of the Worlds' (2005).


                          Literary papers
======================================================================
In 1954, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign purchased the
H.G. Wells literary papers and correspondence collection. The
university's Rare Book & Manuscript Library holds the largest
collection of Wells manuscripts, correspondence, first editions and
publications in the United States. Among these is unpublished material
and the manuscripts of such works as 'The War of the Worlds' and 'The
Time Machine'. The collection includes first editions, revisions and
translations. The letters contain general family correspondence,
communications from publishers, material regarding the Fabian Society,
and letters from politicians and public figures, most notably George
Bernard Shaw and Joseph Conrad.


                              See also
======================================================================
* ''
* Scientific Marvelous


                             References
======================================================================
{{reflist|refs=







}}


                          Further reading
======================================================================
*
*
* Dickson, Lovat. 'H.G. Wells: His Turbulent Life & Times'. 1969.
*
* Gilmour, David. 'The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard
Kipling'. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002 (paperback, );
2003 (paperback, ).
*
* Gomme, A. W., 'Mr. Wells as Historian'. Glasgow: MacLehose, Jackson,
and Co., 1921.
* Gosling, John. 'Waging the War of the Worlds'. Jefferson, North
Carolina, McFarland, 2009 (paperback, ).
*
* Jasanoff, Maya, "The Future Was His" (review of Sarah Cole,
'Inventing Tomorrow: H.G. Wells and the Twentieth Century', Columbia
University Press, 374 pp.), 'The New York Review of Books', vol.
LXVII, no. 12 (23 July 2020), pp. 50-51. Writes Jasanoff (p. 51):
"Although [Wells] was prophetically right, and right-minded, about
some things... [n]owhere was he more disturbingly wrong than in his
loathsome affinity for eugenics...."
* Lynn, Andrea 'The secret love life of H.G. Wells'
* Mackenzie, Norman and Jean, 'The Time Traveller: the Life of H.G.
Wells', London: Weidenfeld,  1973,
* Mauthner, Martin. 'German Writers in French Exile, 1933-1940',
London: Vallentine and Mitchell, 2007, .
*
* McLean, Steven. 'The Early Fiction of H.G. Wells: Fantasies of
Science'. Palgrave, 2009, .
*
*
* Partington, John S. 'Building Cosmopolis: The Political Thought of
H.G. Wells'. Ashgate, 2003, .
* Roberts, Adam. 'H.G. Wells A Literary Life.' Springer International
Publishing, 2019, ISBN 978-3-03-026421-5.
* Roukema, Aren. 2021. "The Esoteric Roots of Science Fiction: Edward
Bulwer-Lytton, H.G. Wells, and the Occlusion of Magic." 'Science
Fiction Studies' 48 (2): 218-42.
* Shadurski, Maxim. 'The Nationality of Utopia: H.G. Wells, England,
and the World State'. London: Routledge, 2020, .
* Tomalin, Claire. 'The Young H. G. Wells: Changing the World'.
London: Viking, 2021, .


                           External links
======================================================================
*
*
*
*
*
* [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07w13lz 'Future Tense - The Story
of H.G. Wells'] at BBC One - 150th anniversary documentary (2016)
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080517081302/http://www.newstatesman.com/200010090006
"In the footsteps of H.G. Wells"] at 'New Statesman' - "The great
author called for a Human Rights Act; 60 years later, we have it"
(2000)


Sources—collections
=====================
*
*
*
*
*
* [http://www.ebooktakeaway.com/ebta/people/h_g_wells Free H.G. Wells
downloads for iPhone, iPad, Nook, Android, and Kindle in PDF and all
popular eBook reader formats (AZW3, EPUB, MOBI)] at ebooktakeaway.com
* [http://www.bl.uk/people/h-g-wells H.G. Wells]  at the British
Library
* [http://hdl.handle.net/10111/MSS00071#letterH H.G. Wells papers] at
University of Illinois
* [https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/h-g-wells-books.html Ebooks by
H.G. Wells] at Global Grey Ebooks
*


Sources—letters, essays and interviews
========================================
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20110613080855/http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/hg_wells/
Archive of Wells's BBC broadcasts]
* [http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=52254 Film interview with
H.G. Wells]
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20131103051737/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-pubeng?specfile=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fmodeng%2Fpublicsearch%2Fmodengpub.o2w&act=text&offset=719129302&textreg=3&query=h.%2Bg.%2Bwells&id=WelCran
"Stephen Crane. From an English Standpoint"], by Wells, 1900.
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20000309232944/http://www.schoolofwisdom.com/tagore-wells.html
Rabindranath Tagore: In conversation with H.G. Wells]. Rabindranath
Tagore and Wells conversing in Geneva in 1930.
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060924212919/http://www.pseudopodium.org/barbellionblog/wells-intro.php
"Introduction"], to W.N.P. Barbellion's 'The Journal of a Disappointed
Man', by Wells, 1919.
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060813133418/http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/documents/wells2.htm
"Woman and Primitive Culture"], by Wells, 1895.
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20110718140117/http://alangullette.com/lit/shiel/letters/mps_wells.htm
Letter], to M. P. Shiel, by Wells, 1937.


Biography
===========
*
* [https://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9076509/H-G-Wells "H.G.
Wells"]. In 'Encyclopædia Britannica' Online.
*
*


Critical essays
=================
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20140827214832/http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/an-introduction-to-the-war-of-the-worlds
An introduction to 'The War of the Worlds' by Iain Sinclair] on the
British Library's Discovering Literature website.
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20030118202554/http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=AusWell.sgm&images=images%2Fmodeng&data=%2Ftexts%2Fenglish%2Fmodeng%2Fparsed&tag=public&part=all
"An Appreciation of H.G. Wells"], by Mary Austin, 1911.
* "Socialism and the Family" (1906) by Belfort Bax,
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060513234448/http://www.marxists.org/archive/bax/1906/11/family.htm
Part 1],
[http://www.marxists.org/archive/bax/1907/01/soc-family-26-1.htm Part
2].
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070309070751/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fopinion%2F2005%2F07%2F24%2Fdo2402.xml&sSheet=%2Fopinion%2F2005%2F07%2F24%2Fixop.html
"H.G. Wells warned us how it would feel to fight a 'War of the
Worlds'"], by Niall Ferguson, in 'The Telegraph', 24 June 2005.
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060716093153/http://people.lis.uiuc.edu/~wrayward/Wellss_Idea_of_World_Brain.htm
"H.G. Wells's Idea of a World Brain: A Critical Re-assessment"], by W.
Boyd Rayward, in 'Journal of the American Society for Information
Science' 50 (15 May 1999): 557-579
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070302064008/http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/heretics/ch5.html
"Mr H.G. Wells and the Giants"], by G.K. Chesterton, from his book
'Heretics' (1908).
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060418125058/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_1_23/ai_53569321
"The Internet: a world brain?"], by Martin Gardner, in 'Skeptical
Inquirer', Jan-Feb 1999.
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060823022804/http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=9391
"Science Fiction: The Shape of Things to Come"], by Mark Bould, in
'The Socialist Review', May 2005.
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060926220743/http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/74_2.pdf
"Who needs Utopia? A dialogue with my utopian self (with apologies,
and thanks, to H.G. Wells)"], by Gregory Claeys in 'Spaces of Utopia:
An Electronic Journal', no 1, Spring 2006.
* [http://www.thenation.com/article/when-hg-wells-split-atom "When
H.G. Wells Split the Atom: A 1914 Preview of 1945"], by Freda
Kirchwey, in 'The Nation', posted 4 September 2003 (original 18 August
1945 issue).
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060906215445/http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110006849
"War of the Worldviews"], by John J. Miller, in 'The Wall Street
Journal' Opinion Journal, 21 June 2005.
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20051126081316/http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol02/no02/hart.htm
"Wells's Autobiography"], by John Hart, from 'New International',
Vol.2 No. 2, Mar 1935, pp. 75-76.
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20061123032053/http://revel.unice.fr/cycnos/document.html?id=615
"History in the Science Fiction of H.G. Wells"], by Patrick Parrinder,
'Cycnos', 22.2 (2006).
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070928035957/http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=45&EventId=486
"From the World Brain to the Worldwide Web"], by Martin
Campbell-Kelly, Gresham College Lecture, 9 November 2006.
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20070219163539/http://bostonreview.net/BR32.1/gornick.html
"The Beginning of Wisdom: On Reading H.G. Wells"], by Vivian Gornick,
'Boston Review', 31.1 (2007).
*
[https://archive.today/20010222215740/http://www.hycyber.com/SF/complete_wells.html
John Hammond, The Complete List of Short Stories of H.G. Wells]
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20090924232911/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/09/090921%2Dhg%2Dwells%2Dhgwells.html
"H.G. Wells Predictions Ring True, 143 Years Later"] at 'National
Geographic'
* [http://www.newstatesman.com/archive/2013/12/h-g-wells-man-i-knew
"H.G. Wells, the man I knew"] Obituary of Wells by George Bernard
Shaw, at the 'New Statesman'
*
*
*


License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells

You are viewing proxied material from gopherpedia.com. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.