Wells, H(erbert) G(eorge) 1866-1946
English novelist, short-story writer and popular historian

Born in Bromley, Kent, he became a draper's apprentice, then a pupil teacher at the Midhurst Grammar School, from where he won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science, South Kensington, and studied biology under T H Huxley. He obtained a BSc in 1890 and then lectured until the success of his short stories allowed him to concentrate full-time on writing. Idealistic, impatient and dynamic, he threw himself into contemporary issues - free love, Fabianism, progressive education, scientific theory, 'world government' (he was an early agitator for a League of Nations) and human rights. His private life was no less restless than his public - he was married twice and had numerous affairs, notably with 'new' women, including Elizabeth von Arnim and Rebecca West. He achieved fame as a novelist with The Time Machine (1895), an allegory set in the year 802701 describing a two-tier society. It pioneered English science fiction, and was followed by significant contributions to the genre, such as The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), The First Men in the Moon (1901) and Men Like Gods (1923). He also wrote some of the best-known English comic novels - Love and Mr Lewisham (1900), Kipps (1905) and The History of Mr Polly (1910). Mr Britling Sees It Through (1916) and The World of William Clissold (1926) are lesser books but autobiographically illuminating. His other works include The Outline of History (1920), which enjoyed a vast circulation, The Shape of Things to Come (1933), a plea to confront fascism before it was too late, and the despairing Mind at the End of its Tether (1945). Experiment in Autobiography (1934) includes a striking self-portrait and studies of friends and contemporaries.

Bibliography: P Parrinder, H.G. Wells (1976)