Talk:H. G. Wells/Archive 1

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Herbert George Wells → H. G. Wells

In my experience, he is most commonly referred to by his initials, and these are generally used on his books as well. (Interestingly, Wikipedia:Naming Conventions actually uses him as an example for initial style, stating that it should be "H. G. Wells" and not "H.G. Wells.") I'm reminded of a scene in Time After Time when Wells, who's traveled into the present with his time machine, reveals his identity: "My name is Herbert George Wells." The other person stares at him blankly, and he says "H.G. Wells!"; this clicks. I think that pretty well covers it. --LostLeviathan 21:42, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Looks like this used to be at H. G. Wells in the past, and is where it is as a result of a copy 'n' paste move by User:Urhixidur on Oct 16th. An admin should merge the histories (both the article and the Talk pages). -- Netoholic @ 01:26, 2004 Dec 21 (UTC)
    • Page histories merged. -- Cyrius|✎ 19:41, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Support with reservations. It's consistent with T. S. Eliot and A. A. Milne, but I think it is a bad policy and the redirects end up bass ackwards. Icundell 09:29, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The problem with going with the initials is that there are no consistent orthographic conventions for initials (whatever the style guide may say). H. G. Wells, HG Wells, H.G.Wells? Let's stick with his full name as the name of the article, just as United States is the name of the article despite nearly everybody calling the country USA or US. And it doesn't matter what the scriptwriter from Time after Time said, they got his accent completely wrong. They had Malcolm McDowell speaking like somebody educated at Eton, but recordings of his voice show that, to the end of his life, he bore the accent of the man he was, an escaped draper's assistant from Bromley. --[[User:Tony Sidaway|Tony Sidaway|Talk]] 13:31, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Accents aside :) don't redirects deal with spelling issues? Users may guess several forms of HG Wells, but probably not Herbert George Wells. Rd232 20:25, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • support, use common names--Jiang 15:45, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • support, if this wasn't listed here, I'd have just moved it. Unless we came up with a policy that banned initials in article titles entirely (which I don't think we should do unless we decided to abandon "most common name" entirely, which we shouldn't do), this is clearly someone who should be at with the initials. john k 20:42, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. Google: about 716,000 for "h. g. wells", about 44,800 for "herbert george wells". All his work was published in the form H. G. Wells. I would add that although been reading Wells since I was nine years old and consider myself a fan, I have a personal acquaintance I've known for ten years who calls himself "Herb Wells" and it wasn't until a year ago that I even thought to ask whether there was a connection. (There wasn't). [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 21:24, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Support. I had no idea that was his first name. -- JamesTeterenko 17:23, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I loved it as a kid

HG Wells stirred my imagination

I think the list of works by HG Wells needs to be looked at very carefully especially since at a glance I have noticed the absence of his 1940 work titled the "new world order". especially since this work touched the very controversial issue of a one world socialist government. so I find it amazing that this was left out and clearly highlights the fact that other things may be missingwhich should obviously be there.

comments

I'd suggest creating a new page with just Wells' works and linking it to this page. This page is too long and cumbersome Bissinger 13:18, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

If someone, such as the original author, does not render this article from the neutral point of view, I will. You might not like the result. You have been warned. --LMS
I don't see what's is so non-NPOV in this article (as of Oct 4, 2002). For instance, what is non-NPOV in the following two paragraphs removed by Minimax on 18:46 Oct 4, 2002 ?
In his youth he was unhappily apprenticed as a draper--his years in this occupation, he later used as material for his novel Kipps: A Modern Utopia which also critiques the world's distribution of wealth.
In The War of the Worlds, alien creatures invaded Earth. Wells was an admirer of Jules Verne's writing, which influenced his decision to write science fiction; though unlike Verne he chose to add an element of horror and suspense to his writing.

If the statements there are true, they are facts (they don't even say the, wealth distribution is bad, just that Wells critiques it), and look quite innocuous to me.

FvdP 17:17 Oct 4, 2002 (UTC)

Verne is not even "science fiction", but rather "technical fiction" writer 195.218.210.145 (talk) 00:19, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm...

You may be right about the 'critique' part - I'll put that back. But whether he was 'unhappily' apprenticed or not is qualitative, and therefore an opinion. As is whether Wells admired or was influenced by Jules Verne, or the amount of horror or suspense in his writing.

If Wells say "I was unhappy when I was an apprentice", can't we take that as a fact ? Same thing about his admiring Jules Verne. The possible influence of J.V. on Well's writing is of course much more elusive. About "horror" and "suspense", they become facts if you bring enough arguments, IMO. I don't remember that Jules Verne lacked in suspense, but he was surely not that much into horror. (I know almost nothing about Wells, though.)FvdP 17:36 Oct 4, 2002 (UTC)

Wells is certainly into horror, Verne tends more towards fantasy. If Wells said he was unhappy, then why not just state that? I had similar problems with the Ingmar Bergman article: 'Bergman reports,' 'Bergman says,' ad infinitum. --KQ

Can anyone find any proof whether Wells ever said he was unhappy or not? I haven't got a copy of his autobiography, so I'm not going to cast any aspersions about the working practices of this drapers unless someone can find something concrete. As for 'horror vs fantasy' - well, the discussion above already shows that its all a matter of opinion.Minimax

As for 'horror vs fantasy' - well, the discussion above already shows that its all a matter of opinion. ? Not quite so. About "horror", Koyaanis Qatsi and me seem to perfectly agree. We used terms like "surely" and "certainly", didn't we ? -- FvdP

You miss my point. Whether you agree or not is irrelevant - the fact that there is scope for possible disagreement suggests that it is a matter of opinion. Minimax

Sorry, that wasn't meant to sound quite as abrupt as it does, but I hope you get the gist. Minimax

I do, methinks, and I do still disagree. I agree with what user:rbrwr wrote below. You're taking the requirement of objectivity a bit too far. Talking of "horror" in Wells's writings seems to me perfectly compatible with the spirit of the Wikipedia for me, if there is no 'serious dispute' on it, for instance if one can bring serious arguments rooted in Wells's works. And if there is a disputed opinion on a subject, we can always express both sides of the quarrel. FvdP 20:24 Oct 11, 2002 (UTC)

From my reading of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, whether something is technically a matter of opinion is not important; what is important is whether there is "some serious dispute" on the matter. I don't believe that there is any serious dispute on whether Wells was unhappy; for example see Michael Foot, H.G.: The History of Mr Wells ISBN 0-385-40366-6 which says "he spent four interminable years ... hating every aspect of his servitude", and repeats a well-known story about Wells walking 17 miles to get away from the place. There is, on the other hand, serious dispute on whether Wells can be described as misogynist. On the genre descriptions of his work, I don't think they particularly need to be hedged, but I don't feel strongly on the matter. --rbrwr

Thanks.I couldn't find any proof of his being unhappy anywhere - I'll put it back in. Minimax

The link on The Shape of Things to Come was piped to Things to Come, which is the name of the film adapted by Wells himself from his book. I've made it point to an as-yet-unwritten article on the book itself. I just mention this here because presumably there was some reason why it pointed to the film title in the first place, even if I don't see it. --Camembert

I just found a review of A.B. Mckilliop's book, The Spinster and the Prophet, & from that extracted much of the content I just added. I haven't read the book, nor have I heard about this incident before this, but I feel it is significant enough to include. Hopefully someone will read this book & flesh out this note -- or a Wells' scholar provide more information about this incident, & perhaps his reputation as a philanderer. -- llywrch 22:03 Jan 5, 2003 (UTC)

Although the article is rather longish, there is nothing in it about Wells's private life. At the same time I keep stumbling across (famous) women he was having affairs with (Elizabeth von Arnim, Rebecca West), et al.? Who can add something here? <KF> 10:15, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I've heard from numerous sources that H.G. Wells was a known anti-Semite. Shouldn't something on that topic be added to the article? - An Oxford Student

Wells was in no way a programmatical anti-semite, though his prejudices sometimes reflect those of his age. His hostility to religion is probably of more point in this issue than any animus against Jewish people particularly, though some of Wells' comments do display a pretty revolting ignorance by today's standards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Contributions/ ([[User talk:|talk]]) 79.64.117.207

Well, I would never have expected so much controversy on this article. In any event, I'm modifying the following sentence,

His efforts to help form the League of Nations became a disappointment as the organization turned out to be a weak one unable to prevent even World War II.

... to remove the word "even". WWII was no small war to avoid, and this statement ignores the few limited successes achieved by the League before its ultimate demise. --Todeswalzer 17:11, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


Just what ever did Happen to Hubert George Wells did he really finally escape int the time machine he was just perhaps to realize that time travel is real and cna be done just like we are still trying to do today! and we will and have some of us anyway! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eleventhdr (talk • contribs) 16:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Darker side to Wells

Should this be mentioned at all? I think it might give a little insight into his character.

"And how will the New Republic treat the inferior races? How will it deal with the black? . . . the yellow man? . . . the Jew? . . . those swarms of black, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people, who do not come into the new needs of efficiency? Well, the world is a world, and not a charitable institution, and I take it they will have to go. . . . And the ethical system of these men of the New Republic, the ethical system which will dominate the world state, will be shaped primarily to favor the procreation of what is fine and efficient and beautiful in humanity—beautiful and strong bodies, clear and powerful minds. . . . And the method that nature has followed hitherto in the shaping of the world, whereby weakness was prevented from propagating weakness . . . is death. . . . The men of the New Republic . . . will have an ideal that will make the killing worth the while"

There are some other pretty questionable quotes.[1] Richard Cane 05:22, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • Michael Coren who appears in the above reference [1] moved from UK to Canada. Click the [Reviews] tab on his homepage [2] to see the various responses to his authorship The Invisible Man: The Life & Liberties of H.G. Wells. See also "Michael Coren: Jewish influence, Jewish bigotry." [3]
It's not just racist stuff. In fact that's kind of conflicting and uncertain in truth. Wells was quite firm that democracy was bad. His more noble sounding ideas about peace and education were really more about re-education and control. Even before his bitter later years he firmly was inspired by Plato to want a utopian world-state that repressed religion and other ideas he deemed dangerous. By the 1940s he was writing crude insults to George Orwell, alienated most of his old friends, and basically attacked organizations devoted to his ideals. In 'Wells and the World State it has quotes by him where he indicates the utopian world-state he wanted must hunt down and kill all who oppose it. He also stated he wanted "Liberal Nazis." In other words he wanted a state where people were re-educated to a totalitarian ideology, but one of cosmopolitanism rather than racism. Although he strongly believed this totalitarianism should only be of one culture. I don't think he was Anti-Semitic, but he was against Judaism and all religions. He was consistent that "the Jews" should embrace his idea of Cosmpolitan global utopia or be hunted down like the Catholics or others. And on that he wrote some of the classic screeds against Catholics, in part because he feared them as a "rival Open Conspiracy."(This is from his Autobiography, his hatred of Christians in general and Catholics in particular is quite real. At the same time he also liked/respected Catholics the way you would respect say your enemy in battle)--T. Anthony 10:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
On second though I think the more negative aspects of Wells really need to be mentioned in this. Apparently the only POV dispute on this has been whether he was happy or unhappy as a draper which is pretty minor considering. For one a footnote to support the idea he turned against the USSR due to Stalin doesn't back that claim up at all, it just says others did not. Wells in fact said that on meeting him Stalin wasn't as bad as people said and had an overall mixed impression. When Nancy Astor, bigot that she was, called Stalin on his purgings he lambasted her. When I finish his autobiography I'll start on fixing this to be less of a love letter to a dead man.--T. Anthony 17:15, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Added some of the praise he gave Stalin in his autobiography. That paragraph may need cleaned up, but it is sourced from his own work so it shouldn't be necessary to remove it.--T. Anthony 11:18, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
The quotation at the top of this section is about the most appalling piece of racism I have ever read. If I read it correctly, Wells was calling for about three quarters of the human race to be exterminated. I think there should be something about this in the article. However I've only seen it quoted in David Miles The tribes of Britain and in fairness to Wells I suppose somebody should find the original and verify that he hasn't been misquoted. Rhion 12:27, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I know that quotation. Or at least the first part of it. It's in Anticipations. Ah. Here it is: [4] "those swarms of black, and brown, and dirty-white, and yellow people, who do not come into the new needs of efficiency? Well, the world is a world, and not a charitable institution, and I take it they will have to go." Let's see about the rest of it... getting out my Dover paperback edition... "And how will the New Republic treat the inferior races? How will it deal with the black? how will it deal with the yellow man? how will it tackle that alleged termite in the woodwork, the Jew? . . ."
He is rather kind to Jews, though (Note: I guess I'd better say that's irony on my part): "If the Jew has a certain incurable tendency to social parasitism, and we make social parasitism impossible, we shall abolish the Jew, and if he has not, there is no need to abolish the Jew. We are much more likely to find we have abolished the Caucasian solicitor. I really do not understand the exceptional attitude people take up against the Jew. There is something very ugly about many Jewish faces, but there are Gentile faces just as coarse and gross."
The killing part... hmm... yep, p 169, "The men of the New Republic will not be squeamish, in facing or inflicting death, because they will have a fuller sense of the possibilities of life than we possess. They will have an ideal that will make killing worth the while."
No time to find the rest of it. As presented above, it does take several separate pieces and puts them together out of order, but having read Anticipations I don't think it distorts or misrepresents Wells at all.
The reason I know this quotation is that if you think it is "about the most appalling piece of racism I have ever read," you haven't read much from the period. I know this particular passage because I used it for context in Jack London#Alleged racialist views. See that section for some of Jack London's casually racialist stuff.
The first review of The Song of Hiawatha in The New York Times opined that Longfellow's poem amounted only to "embalming pleasantly enough the monstrous traditions of an uninteresting, and, one may almost say, a justly exterminated race."
I am not sure what came over the world between, say, 1900 and 1940, but it was practically a carnival of racism, and it was not limited to Germany. I believe Wells' views were quite within the educated norms of the time. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:06, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
He definitely supported the British Union of Fascists, a small organisation in the 1930's, I guess thats worth mentioning.--Guitarspider 19:51, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Sources should be cited by Guitarspider. In 'The Holy Terror' (1939) Wells ridicules a British Fascist movement and its buffoonish leader (presumably based on Sir Oswald Mosley). Xxanthippe 12:19, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Guitarspider cannot cite any sources, because there is no truth in his allegation. Wells has absolutely *no* history of political sympathy with Fascism, or fascists. He has a history of interest in, and advocation of, some of the pseudo-sciences that fascism would later adopt as a racist justification for its ideology. These two things are NOT the same. It is frankly tiresome having to remind people again and again that in the early 20th century ideas such as eugenics were not the taboo ideas that an understanding of Nazism has since (happily) made them. 79.64.23.116 17:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Wells was a known supporter of the shocking eugenics movement, a moviement that still exists today and with highly influencial memebers (including the wife of the British P.M. and Bill Gates, who donated $4.1 billion to the I.P.P.F.). I'm amazed that this has gone overlooked. As such I have entered it into the article along with actual quotes made by him that really explain his views away very easily. --Max314 12:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The above comment connecting eugenics with Bill Gates' donation to IPPF (that is, Planned Parenthood) is poorly informed. A very long time ago, Planned Parenthood supported eugenic ideas but it does not now do so. 162.83.236.247 (talk) 03:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)Larry Siegel
  • I read the Reason Magazine article which contains some good factual stuff but I think it overblows it some for the sake of making a "shocking" journalism article. I re-added it to the main body of the article but don't think it's notable enough for the lead section summary. -- Stbalbach 14:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Stephen: The way you've left it gets the balance right, at last. Tricky call, well handled! ––Old Moonraker 15:08, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
The eugenics reference should stay, but the reference to Time Machine is out of place. The eloi and morlocks are the upper and lower classes. It's a commentary on the class system, not on eugenics. And the quote about humanity being destroyed by a more predatory animal has nothing to do with Time Machine, in which it's one class of humans eating another. Let's keep Wells's own quote and then provide the historical context. Jonathan Tweet 15:30, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
It's irrelevant if its "right" or not, but it is relevant that the head of the Eugenics movement made that quote and drew the parallel. It shows that people were using Wells work to support their Eugenics beliefs. That is important and notable. -- Stbalbach 15:54, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Any particular reason why the Laura Ingraham citation regarding eugenics is selected for inclusion? Although it looks a bit recentist to me, this isn't a challenge to the material but a genuine enquiry. --Old Moonraker 07:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Unless Ingraham is a known expert on Wells, or perhaps eugenics, I don't think this accusation adds sufficiently to the article for it to be included. Doctormatt 07:32, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree, there are millions of expert commentaries on Wells, and Ingraham isn't know for her expertise in this field. I've removed the sentence. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 07:47, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Brighter side

It is interesting that the above Darker side to Wells was mentioned during my loud Talk:Hypertext (in the Guide section) highlighting his brighter side, that is, his proposal in his seventies for World Encyclopedia or World Brain (1938) as a solution to the "World Problem" and as a way to the "World Peace." This is likely to be the precursor to hypertext, World Wide web, Wikipedia, etc.

Meanwhile, this article reads: "Wells' first bestseller was Anticipations, published in 1901," hence in his thirties. This book mainly stands for the "darker side." Yes, there were improper love affairs and alleged plagiarism as well. In his early years, he was an experimental socialist and perhaps unfortunate racist, radically inspired by Neo-Darwinism and popular eugenics. But he got gradually disillusioned. All I'm saying is that we would rather be pleased by the bright near side of the moon than the dark far side which though incidentally was named after him. --KYPark 18:16, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I gave in

I've read so much about this person I felt I had to add something as this thing is so dang shoddy. Hopefully someone can improve the additions. I still consider myself a former Wikipedian though and I'll work harder on resisting from here on:) --T. Anthony 11:16, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Deceptive quotation of Hayek

The article contains the following passage:

In his lifetime and after his death, Wells was considered a prominent socialist thinker. In his book The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek, one of the twentieth century's most famous proponents of laissez-faire capitalism, held up Wells in particular as a person who believed in "the most comprehensive central planning" and could "at the same time, write an ardent defence of the rights of man".

And here is the full quotation, from pages 93-94 of The Road to Serfdom:

"It is pathetic but characteristic of the muddle into which many of our intellectuals have been led by the conflicting ideals in which they believe, that a leading advocate of the most comprehensive central planning like H. G. Wells should at the same time write an ardent defense of the rights of man. The individual rights which Mr. Wells hopes to preserve would inevitably obstruct the planning which he desires."

So, a scathing criticism of Wells has been quoted in a way that makes it appears to be praise. I don't see how any person could read Hayek's quote and not comprehend its negative assessment of Wells' thinking, so one must assume that the person who placed this passage in the article was deliberately trying to deceive readers into thinking that Hayek was an admirer of Wells.

I put that in a hell of a long time ago with the assumption that it would illustrate the general perception of Wells' place in the world, not his specific ideas. What Hayek actually thinks of Wells is irrelevant- the idea was that Wells was well-enough known as a socialist thinker that Hayak would hold him up as indicative of socialist thought. That's why it was followed by the Ginrich quote- we go from a state of affairs in which Wells is seen as the prototypical socialist to one in which a prominent conservative praises him without any political fallout. Stilgar135 04:39, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the complete Hayek quote could be included as an example of a criticism of Wells, but for now I'm just removing the entire reference to Hayek. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.184.37.169 (talk • contribs) .

The article was close to reverential of HG Wells when I first came. None of the strong criticism and negatives about him being mentioned at all. I might rectify that some, but I might be too biased in the other direction. (He's a wonderful writer at his best though.)--T. Anthony 07:01, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

External links

Couldn't the external links section be cleaned up a bit? Maybe organized by theme or topic?--Esprit15d 13:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

nobel prize

was he ever considered for a nobel prize.nids(♂) 23:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Death?

The article doesn't deal with his death at all. That's pretty bad for an encyclopedic biography, IMHO. --Storkk 15:19, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's much to say about his death except the date. One source says he was writing about the dangers of nuclear war at the time[5] and being an 80 year-old diabetic was presumably the cause.--T. Anthony 05:26, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't care for the one sentence about his death being placed so abruptly at the end of the political efforts section. Can we do something about that? Even moving it to the beginning of the legacy section is better.71.185.189.112 04:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the suggestion, and don't forget WP:BOLD! --Old Moonraker 05:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Conan Doyle

Someone told me that Wells was a good friend of Arthur Conan Doyle. Can Someone confirm that?

I can confirm that you have not signed. ¡ ¿ [[ %7e%7e%7e%7e ]]

According to "History International: International Profile: H. G. Wells: Time Traveler", in the captioning, is "Up Park".

They speak of draper Rogers & Denyer.

Thank You.

[[ hopiakuta | [[ [[%c2%a1]] [[%c2%bf]] [[ %7e%7e%7e%7e ]] -]] 19:37, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

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