H.G. Wells
The world famous author of some of our favourite science fiction novels, War Of The Worlds, The Invisible Man, The Time Machine but there is just so much more to the man.
Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, Kent in 1866, where his father was a housekeeper and a professional cricketer, and his mother a part time housekeeper at the Uppark Estate. In his early childhood Wells developed a love of literature and could often be found studying books in the library. After his father’s business failed, he became, along with his brothers, an apprentice to a draper.
In 1893 Wells became a pupil/teacher at Midhurst Grammar School and obtained a scholarship to the normal school of Science in London. At the Normal school he studied biology under T.H. Huxley, but never managed to complete his studies, leaving in 1887 when his interest faltered. After teaching at private schools for 4 years he finally obtained his degree in 1890. In following year he married his cousin Isabel, and by 1893 became a full time writer.
Wells left Isabel for one of his pupils, Amy Catherine, whom he married in 1895. In this same year his first book The Time Machine was published, from which he gained much credit and a little fame.
Wells’s books were not only entertaining but he also tried to provoke debate into the future of mankind and where it would lead. Wells’s ideas of ‘science’ were not appreciated by all and it is rumoured the French novelist Jules Verne commented on Wells’s book as having “scientifically implausible ideas” whilst Wells claimed “Verne couldn’t write himself out of a paper sack!”
Dissatisfied with his literary work, Wells moved into the novel genre and then after World War 1 into non-fiction books which include The Science of Life (1929-30) and Experiment in Autobiography (1934). Just before the war, Wells had a love affair with a young journalist, Rebecca West, 24 years his junior. Their son Anthony West later wrote about their difficult relationship.
Between the wars Wells dabbled with politics both in his writing and his life. This included standing for parliament as a labour candidate in the early 1920’s. In 1934 both Stalin and Roosevelt met with Wells to try and recruit him to their world saving scheme as at the time Wells had risen to a popular celebrity. Stalin left Wells disillusioned and feeling that Western socialism cannot compromise with Communism and that the best future lay in America.
The irony of the situation was that one of Wells’s many mistresses, Moura Budberg, turned out to be a long serving Russian spy.
Maybe the most famous reproduction of Wells’s book, The War of the Worlds, was the hoax radio broadcast in Newark, New Jersey, USA, which caused congregations to fall to their knees and residents of a block of flats to leave the building with wet towels around their heads!
Wells lived though the second world war in his house in London, refusing to leave, and wrote his final book Mind At the End of Its Tether (1945) which reflected his pessimism about mankind’s future. Through the years Wells wrote over 100 books varying in subject matter from science fiction to sociology.
Contributed by Adam Parker
(Published 8th Oct 2013)
