H.G. WellsBy Greg, Ahmed, Michael and Ruslan

H.G. Wells•(born Sept. 21, 1866, Bromley, Kent, Eng.—died Aug. 13, 1946, London) •English novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian best known for such science fiction novels as The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds and such comic novels as Tono-Bungay and The History of Mr. Polly.

Early LifeWells was the son of domestic servants turned small shopkeepers. He grew up under the continual threat of poverty, and at age 14, after a very inadequate education supplemented by his inexhaustible love of reading, he was apprenticed to a draper in Windsor. His employer soon dismissed him; and he became assistant to a chemist, then to another draper, and finally, in 1883, an usher at Midhurst Grammar School. At 18 he won a scholarship to study biology at the Normal School (later the Royal College) of Science, in South Kensington, London, where T.H. Huxley was one of his teachers. He graduated from London University in 1888, becoming a science teacher and undergoing a period of ill health and financial worries, the latter aggravated by his marriage, in 1891, to his cousin, Isabel Mary Wells. The marriage was not a success, and in 1894 Wells ran off with Amy Catherine Robbins (d. 1927), a former pupil, who in 1895 became his second wife.

Early Life• In 1883 Wells became a teacher/pupil at Midhurst

Grammar School. He obtained a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London and studied there biology under T.H. Huxley. However, his interest faltered and in 1887 he left without a degree. He taught in private schools for four years, not taking his B.S. degree until 1890. Next year he settled in London, married his cousin Isabel and continued his career as a teacher in a correspondence college. From 1893 Wells became a full-time writer.

Politics• Wells called his political views socialist, but he

occasionally found himself at odds with other socialists. He was for a time a member of the left-of-center Fabian Society associated with the Labour Party, but who "broke with the Fabians in 1909 on the issue of mass agitation (or rather lack of it).“ He broke with them because they were not sufficiently radical enough for his tastes. He became a staunch critic of their grasp of economics and educational reform. He also ran as a Labour Party candidate for London University in 1922 and 1923, but even at that point his faith in that party was flagging.

BooksH. G. Wells was a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction. His writing career spanned more than sixty years, and his early science fiction novels earned him the title (along with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback) of "The Father of Science Fiction“

The Time Machine (1895)The Invisible Man (1897)The War of the Worlds (1898)Etc…

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