Herbert George Wells Herbert George Wells 1866

Herbert George Wells

Herbert George Wells (1866 – 1946) was an English author. He was also a writer in many other genres, including novels, history, politics and social commentary. Together with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback, Wells has been referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction". H. G. Wells J. G. Verne Hugo Gernsbacher

Biography Wells was born on 21 September 1866. He was the fourth child of Joseph Wells, who was a former gardener, a shopkeeper and professional cricketer, and his Sarah (a former servant). An inheritance had allowed the family to acquire a shop. Joseph Wells managed to earn a meagre income , but it came from the shop; Joseph received an unsteady amount from playing cricket for the Kent county team, but it came from voluntary donations or from small payments from the clubs where matches were played.

In 1874 he had an accident, which left him bedridden with a broken leg. To pass the time he started reading books from the local library, brought to him by his father. They stimulated his desire to write. Later that year he entered Thomas Morley's Commercial Academy. The teaching was erratic. Wells continued at Morley's Academy until 1880. In 1877, his father, Joseph Wells, fractured his thigh. The accident put an end to his career as a cricketer, and earnings as a shopkeeper were not enough to compensate for the loss of the primary source of family income.

No longer able to support themselves financially, the family instead sought to place their sons as apprentices in various occupations. Wells had an unhappy apprenticeship as a draper at the Southsea Drapery Emporium, where he worked a thirteen hour day and slept in a dormitory with other apprentices, were later used as inspiration for some of his novel material The Wheels of Chance and Kipps.

In 1879 Sarah arranged through a distant relative, for Herbert to join the National School as a pupilteacher. However, Arthur Williams was dismissed for irregularities in his qualifications. Then he had a short apprenticeship at a chemist, and an even shorter stay as a boarder at Midhurst Grammar School. In 1883 Wells persuaded his parents to release him from the apprenticeship and become a pupil-teacher at Midhurst Grammar School; his proficiency in Latin and science during his previous, short stay had been remembered. National School at Wookey Midhurst Grammar School

His good fortune at securing a position at Midhurst Grammar School meant that Wells could continue his self-education. Wells won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London, studying biology. He later helped to set up the Royal College of Science Association, of which he became the first president in 1909. Wells studied in his new school until 1887 with a weekly allowance of twenty-one shillings.

He soon entered the Debating Society of the school. These years mark the beginning of his interest in a possible reformation of society. He turned to contemporary ideas of socialism as expressed by the recently formed Fabian Society and free lectures delivered at the home of William Morris. 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, as well as trying his hand at fiction. The school year 1886– 1887 was the last year of his studies. William Morris (1834 – 1896) was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and utopian socialist. Morris wrote poetry, fiction, and translations of ancient and medieval texts throughout his life. He was an important figure in the emergence of socialism in Britain, founding the Socialist League in 1884, but breaking with that organization over goals and methods by the end of the decade. William Morris

In 1890 Wells earned a Bachelor in zoology. In 1889– 90 he found a post as a teacher at Henley House School where he taught A. A. Milne. Upon leaving the Normal School of Science, Wells was left without income. His father's sister-in-law invited him to stay with her for a while, which solved his immediate problem of accommodation. There he grew increasingly interested in her daughter, Isabel. A. A. Milne Alan Alexander Milne (1882 – 1956) - one of the greatest children's story teller. He is known for his best-selling books 'When We Were Very Young‘ (1924), 'Winnie-the-Pooh' (1926) etc. Henley House School

PERSONAL LIFE In 1891 Wells married Isabel, but they agreed to separate in 1894 when he fell in love with one of his students, Amy Catherine, whom he married in 1895. In 1901 he built a large home: Spade House in Sandgate. He had two sons with Jane: George Philip in 1901 and Frank Richard in 1903. The marriage lasted until her death in 1927. Amy Catherine Robbins (known as Jane)

Spade House was the home of the science fiction writer H. G. Wells from 1901 to 1909. It is a large mansion overlooking Sandgate, near Folkestone in southeast England.

It was designed by C. F. A. Voysey had a signature heart shape on the door of every home, but Wells did not want a heart shape, so a heart shape was replaced by a spade shape. Wells and his wife's two sons were born here. While living at Spade House he wrote books such as Kipps, Tono. Bungay and Ann Veronica.

Margaret Sanger Elizabeth von Arnim With his wife's agreement, Wells had affairs with a number of women, including Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth von Arnim, Amber Reeves and Rebecca West. Amber Reeves Rebecca West

"I was never a great amorist, though I have loved several people very deeply".

One of the most interesting ways that Wells expressed himself was through his drawings and sketches. During his marriage to Amy Catherine he penned a considerable number of pictures. It was during this period, and this period only, that he called these pictures "picshuas". These picshuas have been the topic of study by Wells scholars for many years.

FINAL YEARS A mural devoted to the author H. G. Wells, located in his hometown of Bromley. It was painted over in the early 21 st century. He spent his final years venting his frustration at various targets. It was also at that time that he began to be particularly outspoken in his criticism of the Catholic Church. Wells's literary reputation declined as he spent his later years promoting causes that were rejected by most of his contemporaries. Wells was a diabetic, and a co-founder in 1934 of what is now Diabetes UK, the leading charity for people living with diabetes in the UK.

He 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. " He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium on 16 August 1946 and his ashes were scattered at sea. A commemorative blue plaque in his honour was installed at his home in Regent's Park.

NOTABLE WORKS Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought (1901) The Time Machine The Island of Doctor Moreau The Invisible Man The War of the Worlds When the Sleeper Wakes The First Men in the Moon

English scientist and inventor Surrey identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller. The narrator recounts the Traveller's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension, and his demonstration of a tabletop model machine for travelling through it. He reveals that he has built a machine capable of carrying a person, and returns at dinner the following week to recount a remarkable tale, becoming the new narrator. In the new narrative, the Time Traveller takes a journey to 802, 701 A. D. , where he meets a society of small, elegant, childlike adults. They live in small communities, doing no work and having a frugivorous diet. His efforts to communicate with them are hampered by their lack of curiosity or discipline, and he speculates that they are a peaceful communist society, the result of humanity conquering nature with technology.

Time Traveller finds his time machine missing, it has been dragged by unknown party into a nearby structure with heavy doors, which resembles a Sphinx. He is approached menacingly by the Morlocks, ape-like troglodytes who live in darkness underground and surface only at night. He discovers the machinery and industry that makes the above-ground paradise possible. He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species: the leisured classes have become the ineffectual Eloi, and the downtrodden working classes have become the brutish Morlocks. He explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that they feed on the Eloi. His revised analysis is that their relationship is not one of lords and servants but of livestock and ranchers, and with no real challenges facing either species. They have both lost the intelligence and character of Man at its peak.

He saves Weena from drowning as none of the other Eloi take any notice of her. He takes Weena with him on an expedition to a distant structure that turns out to be the remains of a museum, where he finds a fresh supply of matches and fashions a crude weapon against Morlocks, whom he fears he must fight to get back his machine. They stop in the forest, and they are then overcome by Morlocks in the night, and Weena faints. The Traveller escapes only when a small fire he had left behind them to distract the Morlocks catches up to them as a forest fire; Weena is presumably lost in the fire, as are the Morlocks.

The Morlocks use the time machine as bait to ensnare the Traveller, not understanding that he will use it to escape. He travels further ahead to roughly 30 million years from his own time. There he sees some of the last living things on a dying Earth, menacing reddish crab-like creatures slowly wandering the blood-red beaches chasing butterflies in a world covered in simple vegetation. He continues to make short jumps through time, seeing Earth's rotation gradually cease and the sun grow dimmer, and the world falling silent and freezing as the last degenerate living things die out.

Overwhelmed, he returns to his laboratory, arriving just three hours after he originally left. Interrupting dinner, he relates his adventures to his disbelieving visitors, producing as evidence two strange flowers Weena had put in his pocket. The original narrator takes over and relates that he returned to the Time Traveller's house the next day, finding him in final preparations for another journey. The Traveller promises to return in half an hour, but three years later, the narrator despairs of ever learning what became of him.