Author: H G Wells
Wells, Herbert George. Novelist and author of works on politics, history and society. He was born at Bromley, where his father was an unsuccessful tradesman. His early life is reflected in the struggles of many of his novels' protagonists, and his father can be recognized in a number of fictional guises - most notably as Mr Polly. After two unhappy years as a draper's apprentice, Wells became a student assistant at Midhurst Grammar School. From here, in 1884, he won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science, now Imperial College, London. Before taking a first-class honours degree, in zoology in 1890, he resumed the life of a schoolteacher. After an accident which damaged his kidneys, he determined that he would learn to write; his first full-length works were textbooks of biology and geography. In 1891 he made an unfortunate marriage to his cousin Isabel; his second marriage in 1895 to Amy Robbins (always 'Jane' to Wells) was to be lasting. From 1898 to 1909 they lived in Sandgate. His literary career began with the publication of his first major novel, The Time Machine (1895). Other works of science fiction followed: The Wonderful Visit (1895). The Island of Dr Moreau (1896), a grim parable of the blind and bestial forces underlying civilization. The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), When the Sleeper Wakes (1899). The First Men on the Moon (1901) and The War in the Air (1908). By their satirical element and their implicit note of warning, these fables about the impact of alien races or advanced science on established society prefigure Wells's later concern with social and political realities. His interest in the changing social order again unites with a lesser element of fantasy in A Modem Utopia (1905). This, with other works like the later 'discussion' novel. The New Macchiavelli (1911) displays the didactic tendency in Wells. From 1903 he was a member of the Fabian Society, but his contact with its members was brief and mostly belligerent. His quarrel with Q. B. Shaw was only one of his controversies with leading thinkers of the day. Wells's public reputation survived the disgrace which attached to his views on sexual freedom. His liaison with Rebecca West between 1913 and 1923 attracted much attention. Wells was not despairing about the major international crises of the modem world - the Great War and the rise of Fascism. At his last home in Regent's Park, which he refused to leave during the air raids of World War II, he wrote the lively and engaging self-portrait in Experiment in Autobiography (1934) as well as his pessimistic last work Mind at the End of Its Tether (1945).
