H. G. Wells
Who was H. G. Wells?
English author who pioneered the science fiction genre with novels including The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and The Invisible Man. He also wrote social commentary works and predicted many technological developments including atomic warfare and space travel.
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on H. G. Wells (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Herbert George Wells was born on September 21, 1866, in Bromley, Kent, England, and passed away on August 13, 1946, in London. He was a highly productive and influential English writer, creating over forty novels, many short stories, and a significant amount of non-fiction covering social commentary, politics, history, popular science, satire, biography, and autobiography. Wells is mainly remembered for his groundbreaking science fiction novels, earning him the title 'father of science fiction,' a label he shares with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback. Brian Aldiss even called him the 'Shakespeare of science fiction.'
Wells attended the Royal College of Science, part of the University of London, where his studies in natural sciences inspired his imaginative fiction. His style of combining extraordinary ideas with everyday detail became so distinct that critics named it 'Wells's law.' Joseph Conrad admired this style, calling Wells 'O Realist of the Fantastic!' in 1898. His key science fiction works include The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898), each exploring then-innovative themes like time travel, genetic experiments, invisibility, and alien invasions.
Apart from science fiction, Wells also wrote novels of social realism, similar to Charles Dickens in their portrayal of lower-middle-class English life. Books like Kipps (1905) and The History of Mr Polly (1910) showed his range as a writer. His ambitious non-fiction book The Outline of History (1919) aimed to tell the complete story of humanity and became a bestseller, bolstering his reputation as a public thinker. He was married twice, first to Isabel Mary Wells and then to Catherine Wells, and had several prominent relationships during his life.
As a futurist and social critic, Wells focused on progressive political ideas and the concept of a world state guided by reason. He anticipated developments like aircraft, tanks, nuclear weapons, satellite TV, space travel, and even something akin to the internet. These predictions were based on his scientific knowledge and careful observation of modern society's trends. He communicated with world leaders, including Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, promoting global cooperation and rational governance.
Wells was honored posthumously with induction into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1997. His influence covered literature, film, radio, and political thought, and his science fiction works continue to be published and remain part of popular culture more than a century after their debut.
Before Fame
Herbert George Wells was born into a humble family. His mother was a domestic servant, and his father balanced jobs as a shopkeeper and cricket player. Growing up in Bromley, he faced financial instability and was further impacted when his father's leg injury added more hardship to the family. Wells went through several unfulfilling apprenticeships in the drapery trade before earning a scholarship to study biology under Thomas Henry Huxley at what became the Royal College of Science. This education was life-changing, providing him the intellectual tools and ideas that shaped his writing career.
After tough times as a teacher and dealing with serious health issues, Wells began writing articles and stories in the early 1890s. His early journalism and short fiction paved the way for his first novella, The Time Machine, published in 1895, which brought him instant recognition. The blend of scientific knowledge, social issues, and a vivid imagination shaped him as a writer capable of capturing the concerns and potentials of the late Victorian and Edwardian era.
Key Achievements
- Authored The Time Machine (1895), The War of the Worlds (1898), The Invisible Man (1897), and The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), establishing the core vocabulary of modern science fiction
- Wrote The Outline of History (1919), a global bestseller that attempted to narrate the complete history of human civilization for a general audience
- Accurately predicted or conceptualized nuclear weapons, aerial warfare, space travel, tanks, and networked global communication decades before their realization
- Inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1997, recognizing his foundational role in the genre
- Engaged world leaders including Roosevelt and Stalin as a public intellectual, advocating for internationalism and rational world governance
Did You Know?
- 01.Wells's 1914 novel The World Set Free described an atomic bomb dropped from aircraft, a concept that physicist Leo Szilard later credited as an inspiration for his own work on nuclear chain reactions.
- 02.The 1938 radio dramatization of The War of the Worlds by Orson Welles, though it did not cause the mass panic often reported, became one of the most famous broadcasts in radio history and was directly adapted from H. G. Wells's 1898 novel.
- 03.Wells studied directly under Thomas Henry Huxley, the prominent biologist and defender of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, an influence that is clearly visible in the biological themes running through The Island of Doctor Moreau.
- 04.Despite his fame as a science fiction writer, Wells reportedly disliked the label and preferred to think of his imaginative works as 'scientific romances,' a distinction he considered meaningful.
- 05.Wells met both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin in the early 1930s, and he published a transcript of his lengthy conversation with Stalin, which generated considerable controversy at the time.
Family & Personal Life
Awards & Honors
| Award | Year | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame | 1997 | — |
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