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 most known today for his groundbreakingscience fiction novels; he has sometimes been called the "father of science fiction", a title that has also been given to Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback.[1][2]
In addition to his fame as a writer, he was prominent in his lifetime as a forward-looking, even propheticsocial critic who devoted his literary talents to the development of aprogressive vision on a global scale. As afuturist, he wrote a number ofutopian works[3] and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and something resembling theWorld Wide Web.[4][5] His science fiction imaginedtime travel,alien invasion,invisibility, andbiological engineering before these subjects were common in the genre.[4]Brian Aldiss referred to Wells as the "Shakespeare of science fiction", whileCharles Fort called him a "wild talent".[6]: 7 [7]
Wells's earliest specialised training was inbiology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in aDarwinian context.[11] He was also an outspokensocialist from a young age, often (but not always, as at the beginning of theFirst World War) sympathising withpacifist 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 adiabetic and co-founded the charity The Diabetic Association (Diabetes UK) in 1934.[14]
Herbert George Wells was born at Atlas House, 162 High Street inBromley, Kent,[15] on 21 September 1866.[16] Called "Bertie" by his family, he was the fourth and last child ofJoseph Wells, a former domestic gardener, and at the time a shopkeeper and professionalcricketer and Sarah Neal, a formerdomestic 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 playingprofessional cricket for theKent county team.[17]
A defining incident of young Wells's life was an accident in 1874 that left him bedridden with a broken leg.[16] 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, aprivate 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 producingcopperplate 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 femur. 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.[18]
Wells spent the winter of 1887–88 convalescing atUppark in Sussex, where his mother, Sarah, was the housekeeper.[19]
No longer able to support themselves financially, the family instead sought to place their sons asapprentices in various occupations.[20] From 1880 to 1883, Wells had an unhappy apprenticeship as adraper at Hyde's Drapery Emporium inSouthsea.[21] His experiences at Hyde's, where he worked a thirteen-hour day and slept in a dormitory with other apprentices,[15] later inspired his novelsThe Wheels of Chance,The History of Mr Polly, andKipps, which portray the life of a draper's apprentice as well as providing a critique of society's distribution of wealth.[22]: 2
Wells's parents had a turbulent marriage, owing primarily to his mother being aProtestant and his father being afreethinker. When his mother returned to work as a lady's maid (atUppark, acountry house inWest 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, includingPlato'sRepublic,Thomas More'sUtopia, and the works ofDaniel Defoe.[23] When he became the first doyen of science fiction as a distinct genre of fiction, Wells referencedMary Shelley'sFrankenstein in relation to his works, writing, "they belong to a class of writing which includes the story ofFrankenstein."[24]
Commemorative plaque inMidhurst, West Sussex, marking where Wells lodged while a teacher atMidhurst Grammar School between 1883 and 1884
In October 1879, Wells's mother arranged through a distant relative, Arthur Williams, for him to join theNational School atWookey in Somerset as a pupil–teacher, a senior pupil who acted as a teacher of younger children.[21] 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 nearbyMidhurst and an even shorter stay as a boarder atMidhurst 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.[17][21]
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.[17] The following year, Wells won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science (later theRoyal College of Science inSouth Kensington, which became part ofImperial College London) in London, studyingbiology underThomas Henry Huxley.[22]: 164 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 21shillings (aguinea) thanks to his scholarship. This ought to have been a comfortable sum of money (at the time manyworking class families had "round about a pound a week" as their entire household income),[25] yet in hisExperiment 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.[26]
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'sRepublic, he soon turned to contemporary ideas of socialism as expressed by the recently formedFabian Society and free lectures delivered atKelmscott House, the home ofWilliam Morris. He was also among the founders ofThe 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 novelThe 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.[22]: 164
During 1888, Wells stayed inStoke-on-Trent, living inBasford. The unique environment ofThe 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 inThe 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 famousThe Time Machine), set in the north of the city.[27]: 90
After teaching for some time—he was briefly on the staff ofHolt Academy in Wales[28]—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 FellowshipFCP diplomas from the college. It was not until 1890 that Wells earned a Bachelor of Science degree inzoology from theUniversity of London External Programme. In 1889–90, he managed to find a post as a teacher at Henley House School in London, where he taughtA. A. Milne (whose father ran the school).[29][30] His first published work was aText-Book of Biology in two volumes (1893).[31]
Upon leaving theNormal 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 asThe Pall Mall Gazette, later collecting these inSelect Conversations with an Uncle (1895) andCertain 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.[32]
His success with these shorter pieces encouraged him to write book-length work, and he published his first novel,The Time Machine, in 1895.[33]
141 Maybury Rd,Woking, where Wells lived from May 1895 until late 1896[34]
In 1891, Wellsmarried his cousin Isabel Mary Wells (1865–1931; from 1902 Isabel Mary Smith).[35] 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 toWoking, 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.[36][22]: 165 His short period in Woking was perhaps the most creative and productive of his whole writing career; while there, he planned and wroteThe War of the Worlds andThe Time Machine, completedThe Island of Doctor Moreau, wrote and publishedThe Wonderful Visit andThe Wheels of Chance, and began writing two other early books,When the Sleeper Wakes andLove and Mr Lewisham.[36][37]
Wells's second wife, Amy Catherine "Jane" Wells
In late summer 1896, Wells and Jane moved to a larger house inWorcester Park, nearKingston upon Thames, for two years; this lasted until his poor health took them to Sandgate, nearFolkestone, 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)[6]: 295 (grandfather of film directorSimon Wells). Jane died on 6 October 1927, inDunmow, at the age of 55, which left Wells devastated. She was cremated atGolders Green, with friends of the couple present includingGeorge Bernard Shaw.[27]: 64
Wells had multiple loveaffairs.[38]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.[39] In December 1909, he had a daughter, Anna-Jane, with the writerAmber Reeves,[40] whose parents,William andMaud Pember Reeves, he had met through theFabian Society. Amber had married the barristerG. R. Blanco White in July of that year, as co-arranged by Wells. AfterBeatrice Webb voiced disapproval of Wells's "sordid intrigue" with Amber, he responded by lampooning Beatrice Webb and her husband Sidney Webb in his 1911 novelThe New Machiavelli as 'Altiora and Oscar Bailey', a pair of short-sighted, bourgeois manipulators. Between 1910 and 1913, novelistElizabeth von Arnim was one of his mistresses.[41] In 1914, he had a son,Anthony West (1914–1987), by the novelist andfeministRebecca West, 26 years his junior.[42] In 1920–21, and intermittently until his death, he had a love affair with the Americanbirth control activistMargaret Sanger.[43]
Between 1924 and 1933, he partnered with the 22-year-younger Dutch adventurer and writerOdette Keun, with whom he lived inLou Pidou, a house they built together inGrasse, France. Wells dedicated his longest book to her (The World of William Clissold, 1926).[44] When visitingMaxim Gorky in Russia 1920, he had slept with Gorky's mistressMoura Budberg,[45] 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.[46][47]
InExperiment in Autobiography (1934), Wells wrote: "I was never a great amorist, though I have loved several people very deeply".[48]David Lodge's novelA 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.[49]
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".[50] These picshuas have been the topic of study by Wells scholars for many years, and in 2006, a book was published on the subject.[51]
WriterJames 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".[53] 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.[54] The term "time machine", coined by Wells, is almost universally used to refer to such a vehicle.[23] He explained that while writingThe 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 theTime Traveller were all that I could imagine of solid upper-class comforts."[55] 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:
As soon as the magic trick has been done the whole business of the fantasy writer is to keep everything else human and real. Touches of prosaic detail are imperative and a rigorous adherence to the hypothesis. Any extra fantasy outside the cardinal assumption immediately gives a touch of irresponsible silliness to the invention.[56][57]
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 inhorror fiction.[58]The Island of Doctor Moreau sees a shipwrecked man left on the island home of Doctor Moreau, amad scientist who createshuman-like hybrid beings from animals via vivisection.[59] The earliest depiction ofuplift, the novel deals with a number of philosophical themes, including pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity, andhuman interference with nature.[60] InThe First Men in the Moon Wells used the idea of radio communication betweenastronomical objects, a plot point inspired byNikola Tesla's claim that he had received radio signals from Mars.[61] In addition to science fiction, Wells produced work dealing with mythological beings like an angel inThe Wonderful Visit (1895) and a mermaid inThe Sea Lady (1902).[62]
ThoughTono-Bungay is not a science-fiction novel, radioactive decay plays a small but consequential role in it. Radioactive decay plays a much larger role inThe World Set Free (1914), a book dedicated toFrederick Soddy who would receive a Nobel for proving the existence of radioactiveisotopes.[63] This book contains what is surely Wells's biggest prophetic "hit", with the first description of anuclear weapon (which he termed "atomic bombs").[63][64] Scientists of the day were well aware that the natural decay ofradium releases energy at a slow rate over thousands of years. Therate of release is too slow to have practical utility, but thetotal 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".[64] In 1932, the physicist and conceiver ofnuclear chain reactionLeó Szilárd readThe World Set Free (the same year SirJames Chadwick discovered theneutron), a book which he wrote in his memoirs had made "a very great impression on me".[65] In 1934, Szilárd took his ideas for a chain reaction to theBritish War Office and later theAdmiralty, 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."[63]
Wells also wrote non-fiction. His first non-fictionbestseller wasAnticipations 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 explicitlyfuturistic 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 Germanmilitarism, and the existence of a European Union) and its misses (he did not expect successfulaircraft before 1950, and averred that "my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocate its crew and founder at sea").[66][67]
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.[68] 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 hisOutline in 1922 with a much shorter popular work,A Short History of the World, a history book praised byAlbert Einstein,[69] and two long efforts,The Science of Life (1930)—written with his sonG. P. Wells and evolutionary biologistJulian Huxley, andThe Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1931).[70][71] The "Outlines" became sufficiently common forJames Thurber to parody the trend in his humorous essay, "An Outline of Scientists"—indeed, Wells'sOutline of History remains in print with a new 2005 edition, whileA Short History of the World has been re-edited (2006).[72]
From quite early in Wells's career, he sought a better way to organise society and wrote a number ofUtopian novels.[3] The first of these wasA Modern Utopia (1905), which shows a worldwide utopia with "no imports but meteorites, and no exports at all";[73] two travellers from our world fall into itsalternate history. The others usually begin with the world rushing to catastrophe, until people realise a better way of living: whether by mysterious gases from acomet 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 inThe Shape of Things to Come (1933, which he later adapted for the 1936Alexander Korda film,Things to Come). This depicted, all too accurately, the impendingWorld War, with cities being destroyed by aerial bombs. He also portrayed the rise offascist dictators inThe Autocracy of Mr Parham (1930) andThe 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 criticMalcolm Cowley stated: "by the time he was forty, his influence was wider than any other living English writer".[74]
Wells contemplates the ideas ofnature and nurture and questions humanity in books such asThe First Men in the Moon, where nature is completely suppressed by nurture, andThe 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 adystopian novel,When the Sleeper Wakes (1899, rewritten asThe 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.[75]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; likeGulliver on his return from theHouyhnhnms, he finds himself unable to shake off the perceptions of his fellow humans as barely civilised beasts, slowly reverting to their animal natures.[76]
Wells also wrote the preface for the first edition ofW. N. P. Barbellion's diaries,The Journal of a Disappointed Man, published in 1919. Since "Barbellion" was the real author'spen name, many reviewers believed Wells to have been the true author of theJournal; Wells always denied this, despite being full of praise for the diaries.[77]
H.G. Wells, one day before his 60th birthday, on the front cover ofTime magazine, 20 September 1926
In 1927, a Canadian teacher and writerFlorence Deeks unsuccessfully sued Wells for infringement of copyright and breach of trust, claiming that much ofThe Outline of History had been plagiarised from her unpublished manuscript,[78]The Web of the World's Romance, which had spent nearly nine months in the hands of Wells's Canadian publisher, Macmillan Canada.[79] 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.[80] 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.[81] The case went on appeal from the Canadian courts to theJudicial Committee of the Privy Council, at that time the highest court of appeal for theBritish Empire, which dismissed the appeal inDeeks v Wells.[82] 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.[83] 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.[84] In 2004, Denis N. Magnusson, professor emeritus of the Faculty of Law, Queen's University, Ontario, published an article onDeeks 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 withsexism 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).[85]
In 1933, Wells predicted inThe Shape of Things to Come that the world war he feared would begin in January 1940,[86] a prediction which ultimately came true four months early, in September 1939, with the outbreak ofWorld War II.[6]: 209 In 1936, before theRoyal Institution, Wells called for the compilation of a constantly growing and changing WorldEncyclopaedia, to be reviewed by outstanding authorities and made accessible to every human being. He also presented on his conception of a world encyclopedia at theWorld Congress of Universal Documentation in Paris in 1937.[87]
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".[88]
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.[89] 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 wereburned by the Nazi youth in Berlin'sOpernplatz, and his works were banned from libraries and book stores.[89] Wells, as president ofPEN International (Poets, Essayists, Novelists), angered theNazis 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 inRagusa, Wells refused to yield to Nazi sympathisers who demanded that the exiled authorErnst Toller be prevented from speaking.[89] Near the end of World War II,Allied forces discovered that theSS had compiled lists of people slated for immediate arrest during the invasion of Britain in the abandonedOperation Sea Lion, with Wells included in the alphabetical list of "The Black Book".[90]
Title page of Wells'sThe War That Will End War (1914)
Seeking a more structured way to play war games, Wells wroteFloor Games (1911) followed byLittle Wars (1913), which set out rules for fighting battles withtoy soldiers (miniatures).[91] Apacifist prior to theFirst World War, Wells stated "how much better is this amiable miniature [war] than the real thing".[91] According to Wells, the idea of the game developed from a visit by his friendJerome K. Jerome. After dinner, Jerome began shooting down toy soldiers with a toy cannon and Wells joined in to compete.[91]
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 entitledThe War That Will End War.[6]: 147 [92] He coined the expression with the idealistic belief that the result of the war would make a future conflict impossible.[93] Wells blamed theCentral Powers for the coming of the war and argued that only the defeat of Germanmilitarism could bring about an end to war.[94] Wells used the shorter form of the phrase, "the war to end war", inIn the Fourth Year (1918), in which he noted that the phrase "got into circulation" in the second half of 1914.[95] In fact, it had become one of the most commoncatchphrases of the war.[94]
In 1918, Wells worked for the BritishWar Propaganda Bureau, also called Wellington House.[96] Wells was also one of fifty-three leading British authors — a number that includedRudyard Kipling,Thomas Hardy and SirArthur 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".[96]
Wells (left) pictured with Soviet physiologistIvan Pavlov
Wells visited Russia three times: 1914, 1920 and 1934. After his visits toPetrograd andMoscow, 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 inThe Daily News on 1 February 1941, and in his novelJoan and Peter (1918).[97] During his second visit, he saw his old friendMaxim Gorky and with Gorky's help, metVladimir Lenin. In his bookRussia in the Shadows, Wells portrayed Russia as recovering from a total social collapse, "the completest that has ever happened to any modern social organisation".[98] On 23 July 1934, after visiting U.S. PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt, Wells went to the Soviet Union and interviewedJoseph Stalin for three hours for theNew 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.[99] However, he also criticised the lawlessness, class discrimination, state violence, and absence offree expression. Stalin enjoyed the conversation and replied accordingly. As the chairman of the London-basedPEN 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.[100][101]
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 slayingpaper dragons."[102]G. K. Chesterton quipped: "Mr Wells is a born storyteller who has sold his birthright for a pot of message".[103]
Wells haddiabetes,[104] and was a co-founder in 1934 of The Diabetic Association (nowDiabetes UK, the leading charity for people with diabetes in the UK).[105]
On 28 October 1940, on the radio stationKTSA inSan Antonio,Texas, Wells took part in a radio interview withOrson Welles, who two years previously had performed a famousradio adaptation ofThe 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.[106]
"Novelist and thinker". Statue of H.G. Wells by Wesley Harland inWoking
Afuturist and "visionary", Wells foresaw the advent ofaircraft,tanks,space travel,nuclear weapons,satellite television, and something resembling theWorld Wide Web.[5] Asserting that "Wells's visions of the future remain unsurpassed",John Higgs, author ofStranger 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 novelThe 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."[111]
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.[112]
In 2011, Wells was among a group of science fiction writers featured in theProphets of Science Fiction series, a show produced and hosted by film director SirRidley 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.[113] In a 2013 review ofThe Time Machine for theNew 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".[114]
Churchill avidly read Wells. An October 1906 Churchill speech was partly inspired by Wells's ideas of a supportive state as a "Utopia". Two days earlier, Churchill had written to Wells: "I owe you a great debt."[115][116]
Wells was asocialist and a member of theFabian Society.[117] He stood as aLabour Party candidate forLondon University in the1922 and1923 general elections.[118] Wells was a member ofThe Other Club, a London dining club co-founded byWinston Churchill who was an avid reader of his books; after they first met in 1902, they kept in touch until Wells died in 1946.[115] 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 inThe War of the Worlds, which depicts an attack on Britain by Martians.[115] 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 1948Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations shortly after his death.[119]
His efforts regarding theLeague of Nations, on which he collaborated on the project withLeonard Woolf with the bookletsThe Idea of a League of Nations,Prolegomena to the Study of World Organization, andThe 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.[120] In his last bookMind 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".[121] Wells was initially an opponent ofZionism. InIn the Days of the Comet, Jews are described as parasites on European society; however, Wells later became a strong supporter of the establishment of aJewish state in response tothe Holocaust and initiated a correspondence withChaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel.[122]
Wells's views on God and religion changed over his lifetime. Early in his life, he distanced himself from Christianity, and later fromtheism; finally, late in life, he was essentially atheistic.Martin Gardner summarises this progression:
[The younger Wells] ... did not object to using the word "God" provided it did not imply anything resembling human personality. In his middle years Wells went through a phase of defending the concept of a "finite God," similar to the god of suchprocess theologians asSamuel Alexander,Edgar Brightman, andCharles Hartshorne. (He even wrote a book about it calledGod the Invisible King.) Later Wells decided he was really an atheist.[123]
InGod the Invisible King (1917), Wells wrote that his idea of God did not draw upon the traditional religions of the world:
This book sets out as forcibly and exactly as possible the religious belief of the writer. [Which] is a profound belief in a personal and intimate God. ... Putting the leading idea of this book very roughly, these two antagonistic typical conceptions of God may be best contrasted by speaking of one of them as God-as-Nature or the Creator, and of the other as God-as-Christ or the Redeemer. One is the great Outward God; the other is the Inmost God. The first idea was perhaps developed most highly and completely in the God of Spinoza. It is a conception of God tending to pantheism, to an idea of a comprehensive God as ruling with justice rather than affection, to a conception of aloofness and awestriking worshipfulness. The second idea, which is contradictory to this idea of an absolute God, is the God of the human heart. The writer suggested that the great outline of the theological struggles of that phase of civilisation and world unity which produced Christianity, was a persistent but unsuccessful attempt to get these two different ideas of God into one focus.[124]
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".[125]
OfChristianity, 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 asCanterbury 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".[126] InThe 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."[127]
Wells's opposition to organised religion reached a fever pitch in 1943 with publication of his bookCrux Ansata, subtitled "An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church" in which he attackedCatholicism,Pope Pius XII and called for the bombing of the city ofRome.[128]
The science fiction historianJohn 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.[129] Science fiction author and criticAlgis 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".[130] He was nominated for theNobel Prize in Literature in 1921, 1932, 1935, and 1946.[10] Wells so influenced real exploration of space that impact craters on Marsand the Moon were named after him:[131]
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 includedThe Time Machine,The Island of Doctor Moreau,The Invisible Man,The War of the Worlds andThe First Men in the Moon. This was a dazzling display of new thought, endlessly copied since. A book likeThe 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.
In the United Kingdom, Wells's work was a key model for the British "scientific romance", and other writers in that mode, such asOlaf Stapledon,[132]J. D. Beresford,[133]S. Fowler Wright,[134] andNaomi Mitchison,[135] all drew on Wells's example. Wells was also an important influence on British science fiction of the period after the Second World War, withArthur C. Clarke[136] andBrian Aldiss[137] expressing strong admiration for Wells's work. A self-declared fan of Wells,John Wyndham, author ofThe Day of the Triffids andThe Midwich Cuckoos, echoes Wells's obsession with catastrophe and its aftermath.[138] His early work (pre 1920) made Wells the literary hero ofdystopian novelistGeorge Orwell.[139] Among contemporary British science fiction writers,Stephen Baxter,Christopher Priest andAdam Roberts have all acknowledged Wells's influence on their writing; all three are vice-presidents of theH. G. Wells Society. He also had a strong influence on British scientistJ. B. S. Haldane, who wroteDaedalus; or, Science and the Future (1924), "The Last Judgement" and "On Being the Right Size" from the essay collectionPossible Worlds (1927), andBiological 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.[140][141]
Wells's works were reprinted in American science fiction magazines as late as the 1950s.
Sinclair Lewis's early novels were strongly influenced by Wells's realistic social novels, such asThe History of Mr Polly; Lewis also named his first son Wells after the author.[146] Lewis nominated H.G. Wells for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932.[10]
In an interview withThe Paris Review,Vladimir Nabokov described Wells as his favourite writer when he was a boy and "a great artist".[147] He went on to citeThe Passionate Friends,Ann Veronica,The Time Machine, andThe 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."[147]
2016 illustrated postal envelope with an image fromThe War of the Worlds,Russian Post, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the author's birth
Jorge Luis Borges wrote many short pieces on Wells in which he demonstrates a deep familiarity with much of Wells's work.[148] While Borges wrote several critical reviews, including a mostly negative review of Wells's filmThings to Come,[149] he regularly treated Wells as a canonical figure of fantastic literature. Late in his life, Borges includedThe Invisible Man andThe Time Machine in hisPrologue to a Personal Library,[150] a curated list of 100 great works of literature that he undertook at the behest of the Argentine publishing houseEmecé. Wells also inspired writers of continental European speculative fiction such asKarel Čapek,[145]Mikhail Bulgakov[151] andYevgeny Zamyatin.[145]
In 2021, Wells was one of six British writers commemorated on aseries of UK postage stamps issued byRoyal Mail to celebrate British science fiction.[152] Six classic science fiction novels were depicted, one from each author, withThe Time Machine chosen to represent Wells.[152]
InM. 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.[153] Wells had attacked Shiel'sPrince Zaleski when it was published in 1895, and this was Shiel's response.[153] Wells praised Shiel'sThe Purple Cloud (1901); in turn Shiel expressed admiration for Wells, referring to him at a speech to theHorshamRotary Club in 1933 as "my friend Mr. Wells".[153]
InC. S. Lewis's novelThat Hideous Strength (1945), the character Jules is a caricature of Wells,[154] 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"[155] of the influence it had on him).
InBrian Aldiss's novellaThe Saliva Tree (1966), Wells has a small off-screen guest role.[156]
Malcolm McDowell portrays Wells in the 1979 science fiction filmTime After Time, in which Wells uses a time machine to pursueJack the Ripper to the present day.[162] 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 storyTimelash from the22nd season of theBBC science-fiction television seriesDoctor 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 ofThe Time Machine with references toThe War of the Worlds,The Invisible Man andThe Island of Doctor Moreau. The story jokingly suggests that Wells's inspiration for his later novels came from his adventure with theSixth Doctor.[163]
In the British TV miniseriesThe 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.[164]
In the Disney Channel Original SeriesPhil of the Future, which centres on time-travel, the present-day high school that the main characters attend is named "H.G. Wells".[165]
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".[167]
On the science fiction television seriesWarehouse 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.[168]
ComedianPaul F. Tompkins portrays a fictional Wells as the host ofThe Dead Authors Podcast, wherein Wells uses his time machine to bring dead authors (played by other comedians) to the present and interview them.[169][170]
In the 2019 television adaptation ofThe War of the Worlds, the character of "George", played byRafe 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".[173]
In 1954, theUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign purchased the H.G. Wells literary papers and correspondence collection.[179] The university'sRare Book & Manuscript Library holds the largest collection of Wells manuscripts, correspondence, first editions and publications in the United States.[180] Among these is unpublished material and the manuscripts of such works asThe War of the Worlds andThe 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 notablyGeorge Bernard Shaw andJoseph Conrad.[179]
^abDavis, 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.ISBN978-0-06-008381-6.
^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.
^"Hampstead: Education".A History of the County of Middlesex.9:159–169. 1989. Retrieved9 June 2008.
^Liukkonen, Petri."A. A. Milne".Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland:Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived fromthe original on 22 February 2014.
^Hammond, John R. (2004).H.G. Wells'sThe Time Machine: A Reference Guide.Westport, Conn.:Praeger. p. 50.
^"H.G. Wells and Woking".Celebrate Woking. Woking Borough Council. 2016. Retrieved5 March 2017.H.G. Wells arrived in Woking in May 1895. He lived at 'Lynton', Maybury Road, Woking, which is now numbered 141 Maybury Road. Today, there is an English Heritage blue plaque displayed on the front wall of the property, which marks his period of residence.
^Before the 143rd anniversary of Wells's birth,Google published a cartoon riddle series with the solution being the coordinates of Woking's nearby Horsell Common—the location of the Martian landings inThe War Of The Worlds—described in newspaper article bySchofield, Jack (21 September 2009)."H.G. Wells – Google reveals answer to teaser doodles".The Guardian. Retrieved5 March 2017.
^Rinkel, Gene and Margaret.The Picshuas of H.G. Wells: A burlesque diary. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006.ISBN0-252-03045-1 (cloth: acid-free paper).
^"The Man Who Invented Tomorrow". Archived fromthe original on 5 August 2012.In 1902, whenArnold Bennett was writing a long article forCosmopolitan about Wells as a serious writer, Wells expressed his hope that Bennett would stress his "new system of ideas". Wells developed a theory to justify the way he wrote (he was fond of theories), and these theories helped others write in similar ways.
^"A brief history of time travel".The Independent. Retrieved2 December 2020.Time travel began 100 years ago, with the publication of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine in January 1895. The notion of moving freely backwards and forwards in time, in the same way that we can move about in space, that was something new.
^Einstein, Albert (1994). "Education and World Peace, A Message to the Progressive Education Association, 23 November 1934".Ideas and Opinions: With An Introduction by Alan Lightman, Based on Mein Weltbild, edited by Carl Seelig, and Other Sources, New Translations and Revisions by Sonja Bargmann. New York: The Modern Library. p. 63.
^H.G. Wells,The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (London: William Heinemann, 1932), p. 812.
^Cowley, Malcolm. "Outline of Wells's History".The New Republic Vol. 81 Issue 1041, 14 November 1934 (pp. 22–23).
^William Steinhoff, "Utopia Reconsidered: Comments on1984" 153, in Eric S. Rabkin, Martin H. Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander, eds.,No Place Else: Explorations in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction.ISBN0-8093-1113-5.
^Wells, H. G. (2005).The Island of Dr Moreau. "Fear and Trembling". Penguin UK.
^At the time of the alleged infringement in 1919–20, unpublished works were protected in Canada under common law.Magnusson, Denis N. (Spring 2004). "Hell Hath No Fury: Copyright Lawyers' Lessons fromDeeks v. Wells".Queen's Law Journal.29: 692, note 39.
^Magnusson, Denis N. (Spring 2004). "Hell Hath No Fury: Copyright Lawyers' Lessons fromDeeks v. Wells".Queen's Law Journal.29: 682.
^Clarke, Arthur C. (March 1978). "Professor Irwin and the Deeks Affair". p. 91.Science Fiction Studies. SF-TH Inc. 5
^McKillop, A. B. (2000) Macfarlane Walter & Ross, Toronto.
^Deeks, Florence A. (1930s) "Plagiarism?" unpublished typescript, copy in Deeks Fonds, Baldwin Room, Toronto Reference Library, Toronto, Ontario.
^Magnusson, Denis N. (Spring 2004). "Hell Hath No Fury: Copyright Lawyers' Lessons from Deeks v. Wells".Queen's Law Journal.29: 680, 684.
^Wells, H. G. (2005) [1933]. "9. The Last War Cyclone, 1940–50".The shape of things to come: the ultimate revolution. Penguin Books Limited. p. 208.ISBN978-0-14-144104-7.
^Rayward, W. Boyd. (1999). "H.G. Wells's Idea of a World Brain: A Critical Reassessment."Journal of the American Society for Information Science 50 (7): 557–73.
^"A War to End All War". Vision.org. Retrieved27 February 2020.Wells wrote: "This is now a war for peace. It aims straight at disarmament. It aims at a settlement that shall stop this sort of thing for ever. Every soldier who fights against Germany now is a crusader against war. This, the greatest of all wars, is not just another war—it is the last war!"
^Flynn, John L. (June 2005). "The legacy of Orson Welles and the Radio Broadcast".War of the Worlds: from Wells to Spielberg by. Owens Mills, MD: Galactic. p. 45.ISBN978-0-9769400-0-5.
^Bradberry, Grace (23 August 1996). "The secret life of H.G. Wells".The Times. No. 65666. London. p. 18.
^Foot, Michael. H. G.: History of Mr. Wells. Doubleday, 1985 (ISBN 978-1-887178-04-4), Black Swan, New edition, Oct 1996 (paperback, ISBN 0-552-99530-4) p. 194.
^Gardner, Martin (1995), Introduction to H.G. Wells,The Conquest of Time [1941]; New York: Dover Books. This introduction was also published in Gardner's bookFrom the Wandering Jew to William F. Buckley, Jr: On Science, Literature and Religion (2000), Amherst, New York:Prometheus Books, pp 235–238.
^Andy Sawyer, "[William] Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950)", inFifty Key Figures in Science Fiction. New York: Routledge, 2010.ISBN0-203-87470-6 (pp. 205–210).
^abRichard Bleiler, "John Davis Beresford (1873–1947)" in Darren Harris-Fain, ed.British Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers Before World War I. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1997. pp. 27–34.ISBN0-8103-9941-5.
^Brian Stableford, "Against the New Gods: The Speculative Fiction of S. Fowler Wright". in Against the New Gods and Other Essays on Writers of Imaginative Fiction Wildside Press LLC, 2009ISBN1-4344-5743-5 (pp. 9–90).
^"Mitchison, Naomi", inScience Fiction and Fantasy Literature: A Checklist, 1700–1974: With Contemporary Science Fiction Authors II. Robert Reginald, Douglas Menville, Mary A. Burgess. Detroit—Gale Research Company.ISBN0-8103-1051-1 p. 1002.
^Michael D. Sharp,Popular Contemporary Writers, Marshall Cavendish, 2005ISBN0-7614-7601-6 p. 422.
^Michael R. Collings,Brian Aldiss. Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, 1986.ISBN0-916732-74-6 p. 60.
^In Memory Yet Green: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov 1920–1954.Garden City, NY:Doubleday. 1979. p. 167.
^"Vertex Magazine Interview". Archived fromthe original on 21 October 2012. Retrieved21 October 2012. with Frank Herbert, by Paul Turner, October 1973, Volume 1, Issue 4.
^abcJohn Huntington, "Utopian and Anti-Utopian Logic: H.G. Wells and his Successors".Science Fiction Studies, July 1982.
^abcGeorge Hay, "Shiel Versus the Renegade Romantic", inA. Reynolds Morse,Shiel in Diverse Hands: A Collection of Essays. Cleveland, OH: Reynolds Morse Foundation, 1983. pp. 109–113.
Bergonzi, Bernard (1969) [1961].The Early H.G. Wells: A Study of the Scientific Romances. Manchester University Press.ISBN978-0-7190-0126-0.
Cole, Sarah (2021).Inventing Tomorrow: H.G. Wells and the Twentieth Century. Columbia University Press.
Dickson, Lovat.H.G. Wells: His Turbulent Life & Times. 1969.
Elber-Aviram, Hadas (2021). "Chapter 2: The Martian on Primrose Hill: Wells's scientific romances".Fairy Tales of London: British Urban Fantasy, 1840 to the Present. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 61–94.ISBN978-1-350-11069-4.
Godfrey, Emelyne, ed. (2016).Utopias and Dystopias in the Fiction of H.G. Wells and William Morris: Landscape and Space. Palgrave.ISBN978-1-137-52340-2.
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,ISBN0-7864-4105-4).
James, Simon J. (2012).Maps of Utopia: H.G. Wells, Modernity, and the End of Culture. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-960659-7.
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 foreugenics...."
Lynn, AndreaThe secret love life of H.G. Wells
Mackenzie, Norman and Jean,The Time Traveller: the Life of H.G. Wells, London: Weidenfeld, 1973,ISBN0-2977-6531-0
Mauthner, Martin.German Writers in French Exile, 1933–1940, London: Vallentine and Mitchell, 2007,ISBN978-0-85303-540-4.
McConnell, Frank (1981).The Science Fiction of H.G. Wells. New York: Oxford University Press.ISBN9780195028119.
McLean, Steven. 'The Early Fiction of H.G. Wells: Fantasies of Science'. Palgrave, 2009,ISBN978-0-230-53562-6.
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Parrinder, Patrick (1995).Shadows of the Future: H.G. Wells, Science Fiction and Prophecy. Syracuse University Press.ISBN978-0-8156-0332-0.
Partington, John S.Building Cosmopolis: The Political Thought of H.G. Wells. Ashgate, 2003,ISBN978-0-7546-3383-9.
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,ISBN978-0-36733-049-1.
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