H. G. Wells

For other uses, see H. G. Wells (disambiguation).

H. G. Wells
Photograph by George Charles Beresford, 1920
Photograph by George Charles Beresford, 1920
BornHerbert George Wells
(1866-09-21)21 September 1866
Bromley, Kent, England
Died13 August 1946(1946-08-13) (aged 79)
London, England
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • teacher
  • historian
  • journalist
Alma materRoyal College of Science
GenreScience fiction (notably social science fiction)
Subject
  • World history
  • progress
Literary movementSocial realism
Years active1895–1946
Notable works
Spouse
Isabel Mary Wells
​
​
(m. 1891; div. 1894)​
​
​
(m. 1895; died 1927)​
Children4, including G. P. and Anthony
Relatives
Signature
Academic background
Academic advisorsThomas Henry Huxley
Academic work
DisciplineBiology
President of PEN International
In office
October 1933 – October 1936
Preceded byJohn Galsworthy
Succeeded byJules Romains

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' science fiction novels are so well regarded that he has been called the "father of science fiction".[1][2]

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[3] and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and something resembling the World Wide Web.[4][5] His science fiction imagined time travel, alien invasion, invisibility and biological engineering before these subjects were common in the genre.[4] Brian Aldiss referred to Wells as the "Shakespeare of science fiction", while Charles Fort called him a "wild talent".[6]: 7 [7]

Wells rendered his works convincing by instilling commonplace detail alongside a single extraordinary assumption per work – dubbed "Wells's law" – leading Joseph Conrad to hail him in 1898 with "O Realist of the Fantastic!".[8] 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,[9]: 99  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.[10]

Wells's earliest specialised training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a Darwinian context.[11] 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.[12][13] 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.[9] Wells was a diabetic and co-founded the charity The Diabetic Association (Diabetes UK) in 1934.[14]

  1. ^ Roberts, Adam (2000). Science Fiction. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-19205-7. LCCN 99087223. OCLC 41338934. OL 7485895M.
  2. ^ "H. G. Wells – father of science fiction with hopes and fears for how science will shape our future". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 12 August 2022.
  3. ^ Davis, Kenneth C. (2003). Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History but Never Learned (1st ed.). New York: HarperCollins. pp. 431–432. ISBN 978-0-06-008381-6.
  4. ^ a b Handwerk, Brian (21 September 2016). "The Many Futuristic Predictions of H.G. Wells That Came True". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 31 October 2023.
  5. ^ James, Simon John (9 October 2017). "HG Wells: A visionary who should be remembered for his social predictions, not just his scientific ones". The Independent.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference wagar was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Wells, H. G. (2007). The Time Machine. London: Penguin UK. p. xiii. ISBN 978-0-14-143997-6.
  8. ^ "How Hollywood fell for a British visionary". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022. Retrieved 14 March 2019.
  9. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference brome was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Nobel nominations was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Philmus, Robert M.; Hughes, David Y., eds. (1975). H. G. Wells: Early Writings in Science and Science Fiction. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press. p. 179.
  12. ^ "H. G. Wells' politics". British Library. Archived from the original on 7 March 2023. Retrieved 13 November 2022.
  13. ^ "H. G. Wells". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 13 November 2022.
  14. ^ "H. G. Wells – Author, Historian, Teacher with Type 2 Diabetes". www.diabetes.co.uk. 15 January 2019. Retrieved 18 February 2019.