H.G. Wells Essay, Research Paper

H.G. Wells writings were influenced by things such as Darwinism, the first World War,

and involved extensive predictions, futuristic inventions, and humor.

Herbert George Wells was born in Bromely, Kent, England in 1866. His father

was a shopkeeper, and his mother was a house keeper. While Wells attended Morley?s

School in Bromely, most of his education came from reading. In 1874 Wells started

reading lot?s of books while he was laid up in bed with a broken leg. From 1880 to 1883

Wells was a draper?s apprentice in Windsor. After a year as a teacher in a private school

Wells won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in South Kensington. Wells

did well his first year, then faltered during his second year and left without a degree in

1877. Wells did not get his B.S. degree until 1890.

In 1891 Wells started teaching in a correspondence college, and got married to

his cousin Isabel. In 1895 he began his successful literary career with The Time

Machine. During this time he gave up teaching and left Isabel for one of his students,

Amy Catherine Robbins. This caused him to write scientific romances such as The

Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, and others.

Wells dissliked the limitations of this type or writing so he started writing novels

such as Love and Mr. Lewisham, Kipps, Tongo Bungay, and others. These novels are

full of a spirit of hostility to the victorian social order. Desiring to make explicit his

criticisms of the past and hishopes for the future, Wells started his career as a ?prophet?

with Anticipations, Mankind in the Making, A Modern Utopia.

In 1911 Wells wrote his last novel of literary importance was The New

Machiavelli, which was inspired by his meeting with George Bernard Shaw and the

Fabian society. In 1912 Wells began a 10 year relationship with the writer Rebecca

West, they had a son in 1914.

Henry James had sought to make Wells a disciplined artist in fiction, but Wells

severely criticized him in his book Boon. During World War I, Wells proved to be an

excellent propagandist in Mr. Britling Sees it Through

Wells continued writing with Outline of History, The Science of Life, The Open

Conspiracy: Blueprints For a World Revolutions, and several others. The influences

Wells had on society were innumerable. He was a literary and a social figure. He

belonged to the Fabian Society, which wants change through democratic reform. He

defined a generation and their social and political view using martians and invisible men.

Wells had a talent in writing and used it.

H.G. Wells was a very talented writer. He used many many things in his writings

such as a vivid reproduction of the things he has experienced, which is demonstrated in

Love and Mr. Lewisham which talks about his student days ant South Kensington. he

also uses a remorseless vision. The Time Machine shows his high measure of invention,

with the idea of having a machine that can travel through time. Wells also shows

unlimited ingenuity, and also seems to give an illusion of concrete reality. In many of his

works Wells shows a rich vein of humor as you can read in Tongo Bungay. He also uses

excellent descriptice power. Wells was also good at predicting things that would happen

in the future. Wells foresaw aerial and chemical warefare, pollution of the environment,

machines of war, genetic engineering, exhaustion of the Earth?s resources, and the

atomic bomb.