Early life Herbert George Wells was born at Atlas House, 162 High Street in
Bromley, Kent, A defining incident of young Wells's life was an accident in 1874 that left him bedridden with a broken leg. in Sussex, where his mother, Sarah, was the housekeeper. No longer able to support themselves financially, the family instead sought to place their sons as
apprentices in various occupations. From 1880 to 1883, Wells had an unhappy apprenticeship as a
draper at Hyde's Drapery Emporium in
Southsea. When he became the first doyen of science fiction as a distinct genre of fiction, Wells referenced
Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein in relation to his works, writing, "they belong to a class of writing which includes the story of
Frankenstein."
Teacher , West Sussex, marking where Wells lodged while a teacher at
Midhurst Grammar School between 1883 and 1884 In October 1879, Wells's mother arranged through a distant relative, Arthur Williams, for him to join the
National School at
Wookey in Somerset as a pupil–teacher, a senior pupil who acted as a teacher of younger children. 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 nearby
Midhurst and an even shorter stay as a boarder at
Midhurst 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. yet in his
Experiment 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. 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's
Republic, he soon turned to contemporary ideas of socialism as expressed by the recently formed
Fabian Society and free lectures delivered at
Kelmscott House, the home of
William Morris. He was also among the founders of
The 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 novel
The 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. During 1888, Wells stayed in
Stoke-on-Trent, living in
Basford. The unique environment of
The 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 in
The 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 famous
The Time Machine), set in the north of the city. After teaching for some time—he was briefly on the staff of
Holt Academy in Wales—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 Fellowship
FCP diplomas from the college. It was not until 1890 that Wells earned a Bachelor of Science degree in
zoology from the
University of London External Programme. In 1889–90, he managed to find a post as a teacher at Henley House School in London, where he taught
A. A. Milne (whose father ran the school). His first published work was a
Text-Book of Biology in two volumes (1893). Upon leaving the
Normal 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 as
The Pall Mall Gazette, later collecting these in
Select Conversations with an Uncle (1895) and
Certain 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. His success with these shorter pieces encouraged him to write book-length work, and he published his first novel,
The Time Machine, in 1895.
Personal life , where Wells lived from May 1895 until late 1896 In 1891, Wells
married his cousin Isabel Mary Wells (1865–1931; from 1902 Isabel Mary Smith). 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 to
Woking, 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. His short period in Woking was perhaps the most creative and productive of his whole writing career; while there, he planned and wrote
The War of the Worlds and
The Time Machine, completed
The Island of Doctor Moreau, wrote and published
The Wonderful Visit and
The Wheels of Chance, and began writing two other early books,
When the Sleeper Wakes and
Love and Mr Lewisham. In late summer 1896, Wells and Jane moved to a larger house in
Worcester Park, near
Kingston upon Thames, for two years; this lasted until his poor health took them to Sandgate, near
Folkestone, 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) (grandfather of film director
Simon Wells). Jane died on 6 October 1927, in
Dunmow, at the age of 55, which left Wells devastated. She was cremated at
Golders Green, with friends of the couple present including
George Bernard Shaw. Wells had multiple love
affairs.
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. In December 1909, he had a daughter, Anna-Jane, with the writer
Amber Reeves, whose parents,
William and
Maud Pember Reeves, he had met through the
Fabian Society. Amber had married the barrister
G. R. Blanco White in July of that year, as co-arranged by Wells. After
Beatrice Webb voiced disapproval of Wells's "sordid intrigue" with Amber, he responded by lampooning Beatrice Webb and her husband Sidney Webb in his 1911 novel
The New Machiavelli as 'Altiora and Oscar Bailey', a pair of short-sighted, bourgeois manipulators. Between 1910 and 1913, novelist
Elizabeth von Arnim was one of his mistresses. In 1914, he had a son,
Anthony West (1914–1987), by the novelist and
feminist Rebecca West, 26 years his junior. In 1920–21, and intermittently until his death, he had a love affair with the American
birth control activist
Margaret Sanger. Between 1924 and 1933, he partnered with the 22-year-younger Dutch adventurer and writer
Odette Keun, with whom he lived in
Lou Pidou, a house they built together in
Grasse, France. Wells dedicated his longest book to her (
The World of William Clissold, 1926). When visiting
Maxim Gorky in Russia 1920, he had slept with Gorky's mistress
Moura Budberg, 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. In
Experiment in Autobiography (1934), Wells wrote: "I was never a great amorist, though I have loved several people very deeply".
David Lodge's novel
A 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.
Artist 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". These picshuas have been the topic of study by Wells scholars for many years, and in 2006, a book was published on the subject.
Writer from
The War of the Worlds in
Woking. The book is a seminal depiction of a conflict between humankind and an
extraterrestrial race. Some of his early novels, called "
scientific romances", invented several themes now classic in science fiction in such works as
The Time Machine,
The Island of Doctor Moreau,
The Invisible Man,
The War of the Worlds,
When the Sleeper Wakes, and
The First Men in the Moon. He also wrote realistic novels that received critical acclaim, including
Kipps and a critique of English culture during the
Edwardian period,
Tono-Bungay. Wells also wrote dozens of short stories and novellas, including, "The Flowering of the Strange Orchid", which helped bring the full impact of
Darwin's revolutionary botanical ideas to a wider public, and was followed by many later successes such as "
The Country of the Blind" (1904). Writer
James 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". 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. The term "
time machine", coined by Wells, is almost universally used to refer to such a vehicle. 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:
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 in
horror fiction.
The Island of Doctor Moreau sees a shipwrecked man left on the island home of Doctor Moreau, a
mad scientist who creates
human-like hybrid beings from animals via vivisection. The earliest depiction of
uplift, the novel deals with a number of philosophical themes, including pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity, and
human interference with nature. In
The First Men in the Moon Wells used the idea of radio communication between
astronomical objects, a plot point inspired by
Nikola Tesla's claim that he had received radio signals from Mars. In addition to science fiction, Wells produced work dealing with mythological beings like an angel in
The Wonderful Visit (1895) and a mermaid in
The Sea Lady (1902). Though
Tono-Bungay is not a science-fiction novel, radioactive decay plays a small but consequential role in it. Radioactive decay plays a much larger role in
The World Set Free (1914), a book dedicated to
Frederick Soddy who would receive a Nobel for proving the existence of radioactive
isotopes. This book contains what is surely Wells's biggest prophetic "hit", with the first description of a
nuclear weapon (which he termed "atomic bombs"). In 1932, the physicist and conceiver of
nuclear chain reaction Leó Szilárd read
The World Set Free (the same year Sir
James Chadwick discovered the
neutron), a book which he wrote in his memoirs had made "a very great impression on me". In 1934, Szilárd took his ideas for a chain reaction to the
British War Office and later the
Admiralty, 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." 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. 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 his
Outline in 1922 with a much shorter popular work,
A Short History of the World, a history book praised by
Albert Einstein, and two long efforts,
The Science of Life (1930)—written with his son
G. P. Wells and evolutionary biologist
Julian Huxley, and
The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1931). The "Outlines" became sufficiently common for
James Thurber to parody the trend in his humorous essay, "An Outline of Scientists"—indeed, Wells's
Outline of History remains in print with a new 2005 edition, while
A Short History of the World has been re-edited (2006). From quite early in Wells's career, he sought a better way to organise society and wrote a number of
Utopian novels. two travellers from our world fall into its
alternate history. The others usually begin with the world rushing to catastrophe, until people realise a better way of living: whether by mysterious gases from a
comet 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 in
The Shape of Things to Come (1933, which he later adapted for the 1936
Alexander Korda film,
Things to Come). This depicted, all too accurately, the impending
World War, with cities being destroyed by aerial bombs. He also portrayed the rise of
fascist dictators in
The Autocracy of Mr Parham (1930) and
The 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 critic
Malcolm Cowley stated: "by the time he was forty, his influence was wider than any other living English writer". Wells contemplates the ideas of
nature and nurture and questions humanity in books such as
The First Men in the Moon, where nature is completely suppressed by nurture, and
The 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 a
dystopian novel,
When the Sleeper Wakes (1899, rewritten as
The 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.
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; like
Gulliver on his return from the
Houyhnhnms, he finds himself unable to shake off the perceptions of his fellow humans as barely civilised beasts, slowly reverting to their animal natures. Wells also wrote the preface for the first edition of
W. N. P. Barbellion's diaries,
The Journal of a Disappointed Man, published in 1919. Since "Barbellion" was the real author's
pen name, many reviewers believed Wells to have been the true author of the
Journal; Wells always denied this, despite being full of praise for the diaries. '' magazine, 20 September 1926 In 1927, a Canadian teacher and writer
Florence Deeks unsuccessfully sued Wells for infringement of copyright and breach of trust, claiming that much of
The Outline of History had been plagiarised from her unpublished manuscript, ''The Web of the World's Romance'', which had spent nearly nine months in the hands of Wells's Canadian publisher, Macmillan Canada. 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. 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. The case went on appeal from the Canadian courts to the
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, at that time the highest court of appeal for the
British Empire, which dismissed the appeal in
Deeks v Wells. 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. 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. In 2004, Denis N. Magnusson, professor emeritus of the Faculty of Law, Queen's University, Ontario, published an article on
Deeks 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 with
sexism 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). plaque at
Chiltern Court,
Baker Street in the
City of Westminster, London, where Wells lived between 1930 and 1936 In 1933, Wells predicted in
The Shape of Things to Come that the world war he feared would begin in January 1940, a prediction which ultimately came true four months early, in September 1939, with the outbreak of
World War II. In 1936, before the
Royal Institution, Wells called for the compilation of a constantly growing and changing World
Encyclopaedia, to be reviewed by outstanding authorities and made accessible to every human being. He also presented on his conception of a world encyclopedia at the
World Congress of Universal Documentation in Paris in 1937. 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". 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. Wells, as president of
PEN International (Poets, Essayists, Novelists), angered the
Nazis 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 in
Ragusa, Wells refused to yield to Nazi sympathisers who demanded that the exiled author
Ernst Toller be prevented from speaking.
Wartime works Seeking a more structured way to play war games, Wells wrote
Floor Games (1911) followed by
Little Wars (1913), which set out rules for fighting battles with
toy soldiers (miniatures). A
pacifist prior to the
First World War, Wells stated "how much better is this amiable miniature [war] than the real thing". He coined the expression with the idealistic belief that the result of the war would make a future conflict impossible. Wells blamed the
Central Powers for the coming of the war and argued that only the defeat of German
militarism could bring about an end to war. Wells used the shorter form of the phrase, "
the war to end war", in
In the Fourth Year (1918), in which he noted that the phrase "got into circulation" in the second half of 1914. In fact, it had become one of the most common
catchphrases of the war.
Travels to Russia and the Soviet Union Wells visited Russia three times: 1914, 1920 and 1934. After his visits to
Petrograd and
Moscow, 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 in
The Daily News on 1 February 1941, and in his novel
Joan and Peter (1918). During his second visit, he saw his old friend
Maxim Gorky and with Gorky's help, met
Vladimir Lenin. In his book
Russia in the Shadows, Wells portrayed Russia as recovering from a total social collapse, "the completest that has ever happened to any modern social organisation". On 23 July 1934, after visiting U.S. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Wells went to the Soviet Union and interviewed
Joseph Stalin for three hours for the
New 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. However, he also criticised the lawlessness, class discrimination, state violence, and absence of
free expression. Stalin enjoyed the conversation and replied accordingly. As the chairman of the London-based
PEN 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.
Final years 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 slaying
paper dragons."
G. K. Chesterton quipped: "Mr Wells is a born storyteller who has sold his birthright for a pot of message". In addition to the USSR, Wells also visited the
Second Spanish Republic, meeting with left-wing personalities such as the feminist and sex researcher
Hildegart Rodríguez Carballeira, whom he offered a job as his secretary and assistant. Wells had
diabetes, and was a co-founder in 1934 of The Diabetic Association (now
Diabetes UK, the leading charity for people with diabetes in the UK). On 28 October 1940, on the radio station
KTSA in
San Antonio,
Texas, Wells took part in a radio interview with
Orson Welles, who two years previously had performed a famous
radio adaptation of The 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.
Death at Wells's final home in
Regent's Park, London Wells died on 13 August 1946, aged 79, at his home at 13
Hanover Terrace, overlooking
Regent's Park, London. Wells's body was cremated at
Golders Green Crematorium on 16 August 1946; his ashes were subsequently scattered into the
English Channel at
Old Harry Rocks, the most eastern point of the
Jurassic Coast and about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) from
Swanage in
Dorset. A commemorative
blue plaque in his honour was installed by the
Greater London Council at his home in Regent's Park in 1966. ==Futurist==