We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us tot the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.

H.G.Wells

Contents

1. 1. Description
2. 2. Early life
3. 3. Works
4. 4. Literary influence
5. 5. Questions

Description

Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer. He was prolific in many genres, writing dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography, and autobiography, and even including two books on recreational war games. He is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne and the publisher Hugo Gernsback.

During his own lifetime, however, he was most prominent as a forward-looking, even prophetic social critic who devoted his literary talents to the development of a progressive vision on a global scale. A futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircrafts, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and something resembling the World Wide Web.

Early Life

Visionary writer H.G. Wells was born on September 21, 1866, in Bromley, England. Wells came from a working class background. His father played professional cricket and ran a hardware store for a time. Wells's parents were often worried about his poor health. They were afraid that he might die young, as his older sister had. At the age of 7, Wells had an accident that left him bedridden for several months. During this time, the avid young reader went through many books, including some by Washington Irving and Charles Dickens. After Wells's father's shop failed, his family, which included two older brothers, struggled financially. The boys were apprenticed to a draper, and his mother went to work on an estate as a housekeeper. At his mother's workplace, Wells discovered the owner's extensive library. He read the works of Jonathan Swift and some of the important figures of the Enlightenment, including Voltaire.

He won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science where he learned about physics, chemistry, astronomy and biology, among other subjects. Wells also devoted much of his time to become a writer. During college, he published a short story about time travel called "The Chronic Argonauts," which foreshadowed his future literary success.