H. G. Wells Books

Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946), better known as H. G. Wells, was an English writer best remembered today for the science fiction novels he published between 1895 and 1901: 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. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction".

Easton Press H. G. Wells books

  The Invisible Man - The Collector's Library of Famous Editions - 1967
  The Time Machine - Masterpieces of Science Fiction - 1986
  The War of The Worlds - Masterpieces of Science Fiction - 1986
  The Invisible Man - Masterpieces of Science Fiction - 1990
  Tono-Bungay - The Collector's Library of Famous Editions - 1994
  The Island of Dr. Moreau - Masterpieces of Science Fiction - 1995
  The Time Machine - 100 Greatest Books Ever Written - 2002

  The Classic Novels of H. G. Wells (5 volume set) including titles:
The War of The Worlds
The Invisible Man
The Time Machine
The First Men in the Moon
The Island of Doctor Moreau

Franklin Library H. G. Wells books

  Three Stories by H.G. Wells - Collected Stories of the World's Greatest Writers - 1982

 

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Author H. G. Wells

Herbert George was the fourth and last son born at The High Street, Bromley, Kent to Joseph Wells, a former domestic gardener and at the time shopkeeper and professional cricketer and his wife Sarah Neal, a former domestic servant and occasional housekeeper. Both parents were members of the working class. They were earning a meagre income that helped support their family for several years.

A defining incident of young Herbert George's life is said to be an accident he had in 1874 at the age of eight years old. The accident left him for a time with a broken leg. To spend his time he started reading and soon became a devoted bibliophile. Later that year he entered the Academy of Thomas Morley, presumably named after Thomas Morley (1557/1558 - 1602) a noted composer of madrigals. He studied in the Academy till 1879. But in 1877 another accident had affected his life. This time it had happened to his father and left Joseph Wells with a fractured thigh. The accident effectively put an end to Joseph's career as a cricketer and his earnings as a shopkeeper were not enough to compensate for the loss.

In 1879 Joseph and Sarah had to withdraw their son from the Academy. No longer able to support their sons financially, they instead sought to set each of them as apprentices to various professionals. At the time it was a usual method for young employees to learn their trade working under a more experienced employer. In time they should be able to practice their trade for themselves. From 1880 to 1883 Herbert George had an unhappy apprenticeship as a draper. His experiences were later used as inspiration for his novel Kipps, which described the life of a draper's apprentice while also being a critique of the world's distribution of wealth. During those years he was a well-known resident of Sandgate.

In 1883 his employer dismissed him, claiming to be dissatisfied with him. The young man was reportedly not displeased with this ending to his apprenticeship. Later that year, he became a teacher at Midhurst Grammar school, until he won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science (later the Royal College of Science, now part of Imperial College) in London, studying biology under T. H. Huxley. As an alumnus, he later helped to set up the Royal College of Science Association, of which he became the first president in 1909. Herbert George studied in his new school until 1887 with an allowance of 21 shillings a week thanks to his scholarship.

He soon entered the Debating Society of his school. This years mark the beginning of his interest in a possible reformation of society. At first approaching the subject through studying The Republic by Plato, he soon turned to his contemporary ideas of socialism as expressed by the recently formed Fabian Society. He was also among the founders of "The Science School Journal", a school magazine which allowed him to express his views on literature and society. The school year 1886 - 1887 became the last year of his studies. Having previously successfully passed his exams in both biology and physics, his lack of interest in geology resulted in his failure to pass and the loss of his scholarship.

Herbert George was left without a source of income for a while. His aunt Mary, a cousin of his father, invited him to stay with her for a while. So at least he did not face the problem of housing. During his stay with his aunt, he grew interested in her daughter, Isabel Mary Wells, his cousin.

In 1891 Wells married Isabel, but left her after a couple of years; and in 1895 he married Amy Catherine Robbins, one of his students. His second marriage lasted considerably longer.

H. G. Well's first bestseller was Anticipations, published in 1901. Perhaps his most explicitly futuristic work, it bore the subtitle "An Experiment in Prophecy" when originally serialized in a magazine. The book is interesting both for its hits (trains and cars resulting in the dispersion of population from cities to suburbs; moral restrictions declining as men and women seek greater sexual freedom) and its misses ("my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocate its crew and founder at sea.")

His early novels, called "scientific romances", invented a number of themes now classic in science fiction in such works as The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds and are often thought of as being influenced by the works of Jules Verne. He also wrote other, non-fantastic novels which have received critical acclaim, including the satire on Edwardian advertising Tono-Bungay and Kipps.

 

Though not a science-fiction novel, radioactive decay plays a small but consequential role in Tono-Bungay. It plays a much larger role in The World Set Free (1914). This book contains what is surely his biggest prophetic "hit." Scientists of the day were well aware that the slow natural decay of radium releases energy at a slow rate for thousands of years. The rate of release is too slow to have practical utility, but the total amount released is huge. Wells' 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 explosive – but which "continue to explode" for days on end. "Nothing could have been more obvious to the people of the earlier twentieth century," he wrote, "than the rapidity with which war was becoming impossible... [but] they did not see it until the atomic bombs burst in their fumbling hands." Leó Szilárd acknowledged that the book inspired him and led to his discovery or invention of the nuclear chain reaction.

Wells also wrote non-fiction. His classic two-volume work The Outline of History (1920) set a new standard and direction for popularised scholarship. Many other authors followed with 'Outlines' of their own in other subjects. Wells followed it in 1922 by a much shorter popular work, A Short History of the World. The 'Outlines' became sufficiently common for James Thurber to parody the trend in his humorous essay An Outline of Scientists.

From quite early in his career, he sought a better way to organize society, and wrote a number of Utopian novels. Usually starting with the world rushing to catastrophe, until people realize a better way of living: whether by mysterious gases from a comet causing people to 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 bombs.

Wells contemplates the ideas of Nature vs Nurture and questions humanity in books like 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 Houyhnhnms 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 at first quite sympathetic to Lenin's attempts at reconstructing the shattered Russian economy, as his account of a visit (Russia in the Shadows 1920) shows. But he grew disillusioned at the doctrinal rigidity of the Bolsheviks, and after meeting Stalin grew convinced the whole enterprise had gone horribly wrong.1

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, but the rumours persisted until Barbellion's death later that year.

In 1927, Florence Deeks sued Wells for plagiarism, claiming that he had stolen much of the content of The Outline of History from a work she had submitted to Macmillan & Sons, his North American publisher, but who held onto the manuscript for eight months before rejecting it. Despite numerous similarities in phrasing and factual errors, the court found Wells not guilty.

In 1938, he published a collection of essays on the future organization of knowledge and education, titled World Brain, including the essay The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopaedia.

In his later years, he grew increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for humanity, as the title of his last book, Mind at the End of its Tether suggests. His later books are often thought to do more preaching than storytelling or lack the energy and invention of his earlier works. One critic complained: "He sold his birthright for a pot of message"

Death

Wells died of unspecified causes on 13 August 1946 at his home at 13 Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park, London. Some reports indicate the cause of death was diabetes or liver cancer. In his preface to the 1941 edition of The War in the Air, Wells had stated that his epitaph should be: "I told you so. You damned fools!" but his wish was not granted as he was cremated on 16 August 1946 and his ashes later scattered at sea. A commemorative blue plaque in his honour was installed at his home in Regent's Park.

His last words were, "I'm all right".

 

H. G. Wells book in order

The Chronic Argonauts (1888)

Textbook of Biology (1893) (revised in 1898 as Textbook of Zoology)

Honours Physiography, co-written with R. A. Gregory, (1893)

Select Conversations with an Uncle (now extinct) (1895)

The Time Machine: An Invention (1895)*

The Wonderful Visit (1895)

The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents (1895)*

The Argonauts of the Air (1895)

Under the Knife (1896)

In The Abyss (1896)

The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896)*

The Red Room (1896)*

The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll (1896)*

The Sea Raiders (1896)

The Crystal Egg (1897)

The Star (1897)

A Story of the Stone Age (1897)

The Plattner Story, and Others (1897)

The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance (1897)*

Certain Personal Matters: A Collection of Material, Mainly Autobiographical (1898)

The War of the Worlds (1898)*

The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1898)

When the Sleeper Wakes (1899) (later revised as The Sleeper Awakes, 1910)*

Tales of Space and Time (1899)

A Story of the Days To Come (1899)

Love and Mr Lewisham: The Story of a Very Young Couple (1900)*

The First Men in the Moon (1901)*

Filmer (1901)

The New Accelerator (1901)

Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought (1902)

The Discovery of the Future (1902)

The Sea Lady: A Tissue of Moonshine (1902)

Mankind in the Making (1903)*

The Magic Shop (1903)*

Twelve Stories and a Dream (1903)

The Truth About Pyecraft (1903)

The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (1904)*

The Land Ironclads (1904)

Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul (1905)

A Modern Utopia (1905)*

The Empire of the Ants (1905)

In the Days of the Comet (1906)*

The Future in America: A Search After Realities (1906)

Faults of the Fabian (1906)

Socialism and the Family (1906)

Reconstruction of the Fabian Society (1906)

This Misery of Boots (1907), reprinted from the Independent Review, Dec. 1905.

Will Socialism Destroy the Home? (paper, written in 1907)

New Worlds for Old (1908)

The War in the Air, and Particularly How Mr Bert Smallways Fared while it Lasted (1908)*

First and Last Things: A Confession of Faith and Rule of Life (1908)*

The Valley of Spiders (1909)

Ann Veronica (1909)*

Tono-Bungay (1909)*

The History of Mr. Polly (1910)*

The Sleeper Awakes (1910)* - Revised edition of When the Sleeper Wakes 1899

The Late Mr Elvesham (1911)

The New Machiavelli (1911)*

The Country of the Blind and Other Stories (1911)*

The Door in the Wall and Other Stories (1911)

Floor Games (1911)*

The Great State: Essays in Construction (U.S. title: Socialism and the Great State: Essays in Construction) (edited by Wells, G. R. S. Taylor and Lady Warwick (1912)

The Labour Unrest (1912)

Marriage (1912)

War and Common Sense (1913)

Liberalism and Its Party: What Are the Liberals to Do? (1913)

Little Wars: A Game for Boys from Twelve Years of Age to One Hundred and Fifty and for that More Intelligent Sort of Girls who Like Boys' Games and Books (1913)

The Passionate Friends: A Novel (1913)

An Englishman Looks at the World: Being A Series of Unrestrained Remarks upon Contemporary Matters (U.S. title: Social Forces in England and America) (1914)

The World Set Free: A Story of Mankind (1914)

The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman (1914)

The War That Will End War (1914)

The Peace of the World (1915)

Boon, The Mind of the Race, The Wild Asses of the Devil, and The Last Trump: Being a First Selection from the Literary Remains of George Boon, Appropriate to the Times (the first edition was published pseudonymously under the name 'Reginald Bliss') (1915)

Bealby: A Holiday (1915)

Tidstänkar (1915)

The Research Magnificent (1915)

What is Coming? A Forecast of Things After the War (1916)

Mr. Britling Sees It Through (1916)

The Elements of Reconstruction: A Series of Articles Contributed in July and August 1916 to The Times (the first edition was published pseudonymously under the initals 'D. P.') (1916)
God the Invisible King (1917)*

War and the Future: Italy, France and Britain at War (US edition published as Italy, France and Britain at War) (1917)*

The Soul of a Bishop (1917)*

A Reasonable Man's Peace (1917) 

Joan and Peter: The Story of an Education (1918)

In the Fourth Year: Anticipations of a World Peace (1918)

The Undying Fire: A Contemporary Novel (1919)

The Idea of a League of Nations (with Viscount Edward Grey, Lionel Curtis, William Archer, H. Wickham Steed, A. E. Zimmern, J. A. Spender, Viscount Bryce and Gilbert Murray) (1919)
 

The Way to a League of Nations (with Viscount Edward Grey, Lionel Curtis, William Archer, H. Wickham Steed, A. E. Zimmern, J. A. Spender, Viscount Bryce and Gilbert Murray) (1919)

History is One (1919)

The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind, I, II (1920, 1931, 1940; posthumous revisions by Raymond Postgate 1949, 1956, 1961, 1971)

Russia in the Shadows (1920)

The Salvaging of Civilization (1921)

The New Teaching of History. With a Reply to Some Criticisms of 'The Outline of History' (1921)

Washington and the Hope of Peace (US title: Washington and the Riddle of Peace) (1922)

What H.G. Wells Thinks about ‘The Mind in the Making’ (1922)

University of London Election: An Electoral Letter (1922)

The World, its Debts and the Rich Men (1922)

A Short History of the World (1922, 1931, 1938, 1945; with several posthumous revisions by G. P. Wells and Raymond Postgate)

The Secret Places of the Heart (1922)*

Men Like Gods: A Novel (1923)

Socialism and the Scientific Motive (1923)

To the Electors of London University, University General Election, 1923, from H.G. Wells, B.Sc., London (1923)

The Labour Ideal of Education (1923)

A Walk Along the Thames Embankment (1923)

The Story of a Great School Master (1924)

The Dream: A Novel (1924)

The P.R. Parliament (1924)

A Year of Prophesying (1924)

Christina Alberta's Father (1925)

A Forecast of the World’s Affairs (1925)

The World of William Clissold: A Novel at a New Angle, I, II, III (1926)

Mr. Belloc Objects to the 'Outline of History' (1926)

Democracy Under Revision (1927)

Playing at Peace (1927)

Meanwhile: The Picture of a Lady (1927)

The Stolen Body (1927)

A Dream of Armageddon (1927)

The Short Stories of H. G. Wells (1927) (later retitled The Complete Short Stories of H. G. Wells and subsequently updated in 1998)

The Way the World is Going: Guesses & Forecasts of the Years Ahead (1928)

The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution (1928, 1930 [subtitled A Second Version of This Faith of a Modern Man Made More Explicit and Plain], 1933 [no subtitle]), also published under the title What are We to do With our Lives? [1931])

Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island: Being the Story of a Gentleman of Culture and Refinement who suffered Shipwreck and saw no Human Beings other than Cruel and Savage Cannibals for several years. How he beheld Megatheria alive and made some notes of their Habits. How he became a Sacred Lunatic. How he did at last escape in a Strange Manner from the Horror and Barbarities of Rampole Island in time to fight in the Great War, and how afterwards he came near returning to that Island for ever. With much Amusing and Edifying Matter concerning Manners, Customs, Beliefs, Warfare, Crime, and a Storm at Sea. Concluding with some Reflections upon Life in General and upon these Present Times in Particular (1928)

The Book of Catherine Wells (1928) (edited by Wells)

The King Who Was A King: The Book of a Film (US subtitle An Unconventional Novel) (1929)

Common Sense of World Peace (1929)

The Adventures of Tommy (1929)

Imperialism and The Open Conspiracy (1929)

The Autocracy of Mr. Parham: His Remarkable Adventures in this Changing World (1930)

The Science of Life: A Summary of Contemporary Knowledge about Life and its Possibilities, I, II, III (with Julian S. Huxley and G. P. Wells) (1930) (subsequently reissued in nine volumes, 1934-1937, under the general title The 'Science of Life' Series)

The Way to World Peace (1930)

The Problem of the Troublesome Collaborator: An Account of Certain Difficulties in an Attempt to Produce a Work in Collaboration and of the Intervention of the Society of Authors Therein (1930)

Settlement of the Trouble between Mr. Thring and Mr. Wells: A Footnote to the Problem of the Troublesome Collaborator (1930)

What Are We To Do With Our Lives? (revision of The Open Conspiracy) (1931)

The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (USA 1931; first UK edition, 1932)

After Democracy: Addresses and Papers on the Present World Situation (1932)

The Bulpington of Blup: Adventures, Poses, Stresses, Conflicts, and Disaster in a Contemporary Brain (1932)

What Should be Done Now? (1932)

The Shape of Things to Come: The Ultimate Revolution (1933)

Experiment in Autobiography: Discoveries and Conclusions of a Very Ordinary Brain (since 1866), I, II (1934) (a third volume, entitled H. G. Wells in Love was published posthumously in 1984)

Stalin-Wells Talk: The Verbatim Record and a Discussion (with Josef Stalin, George Bernard Shaw, J. M. Keynes, Ernst Toller and Dora Russell (1934)

The New America: The New World (1935)

Things to Come: A Film Story (1935)

The Anatomy of Frustration: A Modern Synthesis (1936)

The Croquet Player (1936)

The Idea of a World Encyclopaedia (1936)

The Man Who Could Work Miracles: A Film (1936)

Star Begotten: A Biological Fantasia (US title, Star-Begotten) (1937)

Brynhild, or the Show of Things (1937)

The Camford Visitation (1937)

The Informative Content of Education (1937)

The Brothers: A Story (1938)

World Brain (1938)

Apropos of Dolores (1938)

The Holy Terror (1939)

Travels of a Republican Radical in Search of Hot Water (1939)

The Fate of Homo Sapiens: An unemotional Statement of the Things that are happening to him now, and of the immediate Possibilities confronting him (US title: The Fate of Man) (1939)

The New World Order: Whether it is attainable, how it can be attained, and what soert of world a world at peace will have to be (1939)

The Rights of Man, Or What Are We Fighting For? (1940)

Babes in the Darkling Wood (1940)

The Common Sense of War and Peace: World Revolution of War Unending (1940)

All Aboard for Ararat (1940)

Guide to the New World: A Handbook of Constructive World Revolution (1941)

You Can't Be Too Careful (1941)

The Outlook for Homo Sapiens: An unemotional Statement of the Things that are happening to him now, and of the immediate Possibilities confrontinmg him (1942) (this is an amalgamation of The Fate of Homo Sapiens and The New World Order)

Science and the World-Mind (1942)

Phoenix: A Summary of the Inescapable Conditions of World Reorganization (1942)

A Thesis on the Quality of Illusion in the Continuity of Individual Life of the Higher Metazoa, with Particular Reference to the Species Homo Sapiens (1942)

The Conquest of Time (1942)

The New Rights of Man: Text of Letter to Wells from Soviet Writer, Who Pictures the Ordeal and Rescue of Humanistic Civilization - H. G. Wells' Reply and Program for Liberated Humanity (with Lev Uspensky) (1942)

Crux Ansata: An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church (1943)

The Mosley Outrage (1943)

The Rights of Man: An Essay in Collective Definition (edited anonymously by Wells) (1943)

'42 to '44: A Contemporary Memoir upon Human Behaviour during the Crisis of the World Revolution (1944)

The Illusion of Personality (1944)

The Happy Turning: A Dream of Life (1945)

Mind at the End of Its Tether (1945)

The Desert Daisy (posthumous publication of a work written in c. 1878-1880) (1957)

The Wealth of Mr Waddy (posthumous publication of a work written in c. 1898-1905, which Wells revised and published as Kipps, edited by Harris Wilson) (1969)

H. G. Wells in Love (posthumous third volume of his autobiography, edited by G. P. Wells) (1984)

The Betterave Papers and Aesop's Quinine for Delphi, edited by John Hammond (2001) 

Source and additional information: H. G. Wells