Biography
Herbert George Wells, known as H. G. Wells, was born on 21 September 1866 in Bromley, Kent, England. He was a novelist, essayist, journalist and social thinker who became one of the most important figures in the development of modern science fiction.
He grew up in a family of limited financial means. His father, Joseph Wells, ran a small shop with his wife and also played professional cricket, while his mother, Sarah, later worked as a housekeeper in a large country house. The family’s financial insecurity forced the young Wells to begin working at an early age and to undertake a number of apprenticeships, including one in a draper’s shop.
Despite these difficulties, he managed to continue his education, and in 1884 he won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London. There he studied biology and attended the classes of the distinguished scientist Thomas Henry Huxley. Although Wells did not ultimately pursue a scientific career, his education in the natural sciences remained fundamental to the development of his literary imagination.
For a time he worked as a teacher and wrote educational and journalistic material. Gradually, however, he devoted himself increasingly to literature. His major breakthrough came in 1895 with the publication of The Time Machine, a novel that brought him widespread recognition and established the distinctive way in which he combined scientific speculation with social and philosophical questions.
Over the following years he published a remarkable series of works that profoundly influenced the development of science fiction. The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) explores the limits of scientific intervention in nature and the meaning of being human. The Invisible Man (1897) connects scientific discovery with personal ambition and moral responsibility, while The War of the Worlds (1898) depicts an invasion from Mars and created one of the most influential models of alien invasion in modern literature.
Wells, however, was not limited to science fiction. He wrote social novels such as Kipps and The History of Mr Polly, in which he turned his attention to everyday life, social aspirations and the restrictions faced by the English lower and middle classes. He also wrote political and social essays, works of history and books concerned with the future of humanity.
With The Outline of History, published after the First World War, Wells attempted to present human history as a single global process extending beyond the boundaries of individual nations. The book became a major success and revealed another important aspect of his work: his desire to examine human society on a broad historical scale.
Throughout his writing he repeatedly returned to questions of education, social inequality, technological progress, political organization and the future of the human species. He did not regard science fiction simply as a form of adventure. For Wells, an imagined future was often a way of examining the weaknesses and possibilities of the society of the present.
He was extraordinarily prolific and continued writing for decades. Alongside his literary activity, he participated actively in public debates about politics, social reform, international cooperation and the dangers that technological progress could create when it was not accompanied by corresponding political and ethical development.
In his personal life, Wells married twice. His second marriage was to Amy Catherine Robbins, whom he called Jane, and they had two sons. His private life was highly unconventional by the standards of his time and included several relationships outside his marriage.
During the final years of his life, Wells became increasingly pessimistic about the direction in which humanity was moving. He had witnessed two world wars and the emergence of technologies capable of destruction on an unprecedented scale. Nevertheless, until the end of his life he remained a writer for whom the future was one of the central subjects of human thought.
H. G. Wells died in London on 13 August 1946 at the age of 79. His works continued to be read and were repeatedly adapted for film, radio and television, influencing generations of writers. The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds have become part of modern cultural imagination, while Wells himself remains one of the central figures in the history of science fiction.
