H. G. Wells

The English writer Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 - 13 August 1946) was born in Bromley, Kent. In his youth he was unsuccessfully apprenticed as a draper--his experiences in this occupation were later used as material in his novel Kipps. In 1883 he became a teacher at Midhurst Grammar school, until he won a scholarship to the National School of Science in London, studying biology under T. H. Huxley

In his early novels, described at the time as "scientific romances", he invented a number of themes that have been elaborated on by later science fiction writers and have entered popular culture with such works as The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds. Other novels, non-fantastic in nature were well received, such as the satire on Edwardian advertising Tono-Bungay and Kipps.

From quite early in his career, he felt that there should be a better way of organizing society, and wrote a number of Utopian novels. Usually starting with the world heading inexorably towards catastrophe, until people realize a better way of living: whether by mysterious gases from a comet causing people to suddenly behave rationally (In the Days of the Comet), or a world council of scientists taking over, as in The Shape of Things to Come (1933), which he later adapted for the 1938 Alexander Korda film, Things to Come. This depicted, all too accurately, the impending World War, with cities being destroyed by aerial bombardment.

HE contemplates the ideas of Nature vs Nurture and questions humanity in books such as The Island of Dr. Moreau. Not all his scientific romances ended in a happy Utopia, as the dystopian When the Sleeper Awakes shows. The Island of Dr. 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 Houyhnhms he finds himself unable to shake off the perceptions of his fellow humans as barely civilised beasts, slowly reverting back to their animal natures.

He called his political views socialist, and with his fondness for Utopias, he was initially quite sympathetic to Lenin's attempts at reconstructing the shattered Russian economy, as his account of a visit (Russia in the Shadows 1920) shows. However, he became disillusioned at the increasing doctrinal rigidity of the Bolsheviks, and after a meeting with Stalin became convinced that the whole enterprise had gone horribly wrong. In this he was probably more clear-sighted than many intellectuals of his day. ¹

He grew increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for humanity in his later years, as the title of his last book, Mind at the End of its Tether suggests. His later books tended rather to preach than tell a story, and they didn't have the energy and inventiveness of his earlier works; as one critic aptly put it "he sold his birthright for a pot of message" ²

A partial listing of his novels:

The Time Machine (1896)

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896)

The Invisible Man (1897)

The War of the Worlds (1898)

Love and Mr Lewisham (1900)

The Food of the Gods (1904)

Kipps (1905)

A Modern Utopia (1905)

In the Days of the Comet (1906)

Ann Veronica (1909

Tono-Bungay (1909)

Ann Veronica (1909)

The History of Mr Polly (1910)

The New Machiavelli (1911)

Marriage (1912)

The World Set Free (1914)

Men Like Gods (1923)

The World of William Clissold (1926)

Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island (1928)

The Shape of Things to Come (1933)

His autobiography was published in 1934, as An Experiment in Autobiography

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¹ For examples of his contemporaries' wilful disregard of the failings of the Soviet Union, see the book Political Pilgrims by Paul Hollander.

² I thought Theodore Sturgeon had coined the "pot of message" remark, but on rereading the source (a Sturgeon short story from 1948 entitled Unite and Conquer) find that a character in the story was quoting a "Dr. Pierce" with that remark. Wherever it came from, it's a perfect description of why his later books weren't as good as the early ones..

This needs a lot more yet....

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