H.G. Wells Biography Essay, Research Paper

H.G. Wells

(www.remotecom.se H.G. Wells)

(Times Literary Supplement, “In defence of H.G. Wells)

(The Nation, “The Fabians Were Not Amused”)

(Review of English Studies)

Herbert George Wells, better known to the world as H.G. Wells, was born in a small English village in 1866. His parents were middle class and he had been initially apprenticed to be a draper. He quickly abandoned this though, and started teaching school, writing literature, and studying journalism. Despite his family’s lack of money, he attended London University through a scholarship. During his time at the University, he became interested in writing science fiction. After his graduation with high honors from London University, he began writing books. In most of his books, he tries to make people aware of the dangers that may come in the future. Some of his greatest works are The Time Machine (1895), War of the Worlds (1898), and The Invisible Man (1899). The young Wells, liberated by his restless talent from his strict working class background, broke upon literary England with The Time Machine. Despite his talent as a writer, it has been said that he did not write to his greatest potential. Some say he wrote too often and did not put enough time into his novels. He published more than a hundred works in his lifetime. He has been quoted as being “a genius who abused his abused and vulgarized his enormous gifts.”(Review of English Studies) Wells has been misrepresented as a

fascist and misogynist. He denounced Fascism and criticized Mussolini’s seizure of

power. But, he did think the defects in the reason for World War II. When he was just making his reputation with The Time Machine and The Invisible Man, Wells cringed whenever anyone compared him with Jules Verne. This is humorous, considering even now, when one mentions H.G. Wells, some people will ask, “Didn’t he write 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?” He liked to be his own person and write like no one else in his time. He lived at a time when the novel itself was becoming phenomenal, when fiction felt itself powerful enough to engross all kinds of irreconcilable realities. That is why Wells’s science fiction is so real, and this reality so strange. His imagination was his greatest asset in the development of his career as one of the most prolific science fiction writers of this century.