The 100 best novels: No 39 – The History of Mr Polly by HG Wells (1910) | Books | The Guardian The 100 best novels The 100 best novels: No 39 – The History of Mr Polly by HG Wells (1910) The choice is great, but Wells's ironic portrait of a man very like himself is the novel that stands out Share on Messenger Close HG Wells is often catalogued as a pioneer of science fiction (which he was) with bestselling books like The Invisible Man and The First Men in the Moon. But he was also a great Edwardian writer of immense fame and influence who deserves to be remembered as a major literary figure, now somewhat eclipsed in the posterity stakes. But which of his 50 novels to choose? The Sleeper Awakes (a far-sighted portrait of a world enslaved by money and machines)? Love and Mr Lewisham (the tale of a schoolteacher who becomes a socialist but subordinates politics to family life)? Tono-Bungay (a brilliant satire on advertising and the popular press)? Kipps (a Dickensian comedy about one ordinary man's struggle for self-improvement)?

Wells's fans will have their favourites. But I have chosen The History of Mr Polly, a novel from Wells's early middle age (he wrote it when he was 44), a delightful comedy of everyday Edwardian England that draws inspiration from its author's own life. Moreover, as Wells put it in the preface to "the Atlantic Edition" of 1924, "a small but influential group of critics maintain that The History of Mr Polly is the writer's best book". If he could not quite accept that, he said, he would still concede that "certainly it is his happiest book, and the one he cares for most". I've always liked it (I've never been much of a sci-fi enthusiast) because it is, in many ways, so un-Wellsian. The story – still strikingly modern – is a comedy about a midlife crisis. Alfred Polly has a routine job as a gentlemen's outfitter in the small, provincial town of Fishbourne, a location widely agreed to be modelled on Sandgate in Kent, where Wells himself lived for several years. The tone is established at the outset: "He hated Fishbourne, he hated his shop and his wife and his neighbours.

But most of all Mr Polly "hated himself". When he becomes threatened with bankruptcy, Mr Polly decides that the only way to liberate himself from his hateful predicament is to burn down his shop and commit suicide. But he makes a hash of his "bit of arson" and cannot find the courage to cut his throat with a razor. So then, acknowledging that "Fishbourne wasn't the world", Mr Polly takes off "on the tramp" and walks himself into a better future through what he calls his "exploratious menanderings". For me, there are three elements to The History of Mr Polly that unite to give the book an enduring appeal, and to place it at the top of Wells's extraordinary output. First, Wells's picture of Mr Polly – an ironic self-portrait – is deliciously appealing. In the literary tradition of Mrs Malaprop, and many minor Dickens characters, Mr Polly has an "innate sense of epithet" that inspires a teeming vocabulary: "intrudacious", "jawbacious" and "retrospectatiousness".

Second, Mr Polly (who could have stepped from the pages of Dickens) is a "little man" of a kind typical of late Victorian and Edwardian England, a man painfully, even doggedly, liberating himself from an oppressive class-ridden society. The debt to Dickens is unequivocal. Alfred Polly is descended from Joe Gargery, Bob Cratchit and Mr Wemmick. He's also related, as it were, to Mr Pooter, is contemporary with EM Forster's Leonard Bast, and will subsequently inspire many Kingsley Amis protagonists, as well as Billy Liar. Finally, The History of Mr Polly is a comedy of ordinary, provincial life, rooted in the everyday, with countless brilliantly observed details. In part of the long flashback that composes the middle part of Mr Polly's "history", there's a hilarious wedding which commits him to Miriam, an event that inspires one of Wells's best lines: "He had a curious feeling that it would be very satisfying to marry and have a wife – only somehow he wished it wasn't Miriam." In later life, Wells became one of Britain's most famous writers, courted by US presidents, and rarely out of one political scrape or another.

His meeting with Lenin (1920) and his interview with Stalin (1934) made world news. By the end of his long life, Wells had published 150 books and pamphlets, including 50 works of fiction. In this bibliography The History of Mr Polly has a special charm as a novel in which, for once, Wells became carefree and relaxed, and described the thing he could never find for himself – peace of mind. A note on the text HG Wells wrote The History of Mr Polly in 1909, simultaneously with the completion and publication of his novel Ann Veronica, and published it, with Thomas Nelson, in 1910, while an American edition was published by Duffield & Co. In both these first editions there were some small, but significant, errors which were subsequently corrected. Mr Polly's age, on first mention, is given as 35 but later as 37. In the US edition chapter 5, "Mr Polly takes a Vacation", replaces the original "Romance". And so on. Today, the MS for The History of Mr Polly is held in the HG Wells archive at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Three more from HG Wells The Time Machine (1895); The Invisible Man (1897); The War of the Worlds (1898). The Time Machine | novel by Wells | Britannica.com The Time Machine The Time Machine, first novel by H.G. Wells , published in book form in 1895. The novel is considered one of the earliest works of science fiction and the progenitor of the “time travel” subgenre. The Morlocks in George Pal’s 1960 film version of H.G. Wells’s novel The Time Machine. © 1960 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.; photograph from a private collection Wells advanced his social and political ideas in this narrative of a nameless Time Traveller who is hurtled into the year 802,701 by his elaborate ivory, crystal, and brass contraption. The world he finds is peopled by two races: the decadent Eloi, fluttery and useless, are dependent for food, clothing, and shelter on the simian subterranean Morlocks, who prey on them.

The two races—whose names are borrowed from the Biblical Eli and Moloch—symbolize Wells’s vision of the eventual result of unchecked capitalism : a neurasthenic upper class that would eventually be devoured by a proletariat driven to the depths. Learn More in these related articles: H.G. Wells Sept. 21, 1866 Bromley, Kent, Eng. Aug. 13, 1946 London English novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian best known for such science fiction novels as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds and such comic novels as Tono-Bungay and The History of Mr. Polly. science fiction a form of fiction that deals principally with the impact of actual or imagined science upon society or individuals. The term science fiction was popularized, if not invented, in the 1920s by one of the genre’s principal advocates, the American publisher Hugo Gernsback. The Hugo Awards, given... More about The Time Machine 2 References found in Britannica Articles Assorted References Corrections? Updates? Help us improve this article! Contact our editors with your feedback. MEDIA FOR: You have successfully emailed this. Error when sending the email. Try again later.

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Close Article Title: The Time Machine Website Name: Encyclopædia Britannica Date Published: December 21, 2014 URL: Access Date: January 17, 2017 Share Wells, H. G. Encyclopedia > People > Literature and the Arts > English Literature, 20th cent. to the Present: Biographies H. G. Wells Wells, H. G. (Herbert George Wells), 1866–1946, English author. Although he is probably best remembered for his works of science fiction, he was also an imaginative social thinker, working assiduously to remove all vestiges of Victorian social, moral, and religious attitudes from 20th-century life. He was apprenticed to a draper at 14 and was later able through grants and scholarships to attend the Univ. of London (grad. 1888). Inspired by the teaching of T. H. Huxley , Wells taught biology until 1893, when he began his career as a novelist. Extremely prolific, he was to write more than 100 books.

His early novels and best-known books, the so-called scientific romances, are works of science fiction, full of fantasy and fascinating pseudoscientific speculations, and exemplifying the political and social beliefs of his time. They include The Time Machine (1895), The Wonderful Visit (1895), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). In the novels of his middle period Wells turned from the fantastic to the realistic, delineating with great energy and color the world he lived in. These books, considered his finest achievement, include Kipps (1905), Tono-Bungay (1909), Ann Veronica (1909), The History of Mr. Polly (1910), and Mr. Britling Sees It Through (1916). His later books are primarily novels of ideas in which he sets forth his view of the plans and concessions individuals must make in order to survive.

Included among these final works, which became increasingly pessimistic as Wells aged, are The World of William Clissold (1926), The Shape of Things to Come (1933), World Brain (1938), and Mind at the End of Its Tether (1945). His other works include the immensely popular Outline of History (1920) and The Science of Life (1929), which was written in collaboration with his son G. P. Wells and Julian Huxley. See his Experiment in Autobiography (1934); biographies by L. Dickson (1969), N. and J. MacKenzie (1973), and M. Sherborne (2010); studies by F. McConnell (1981), J. Huntington (1982), J. R. Hammond (1988), and D. Smith (1988). The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. H.G. Wells | British author | Britannica.com British author Alternative Title: Herbert George Wells H.G.

Wells D.H. Lawrence H.G. Wells, in full Herbert George Wells (born Sept. 21, 1866, Bromley, Kent , Eng.—died Aug. 13, 1946, London ), English novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian best known for such science fiction novels as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds and such comic novels as Tono-Bungay and The History of Mr. Polly. H.G. Wells, photograph by Yousuf Karsh. Karsh/Woodfin Camp and Associates Early life Wells was the son of domestic servants turned small shopkeepers. He grew up under the continual threat of poverty, and at age 14, after a very inadequate education supplemented by his inexhaustible love of reading, he was apprenticed to a draper in Windsor. His employer soon dismissed him; and he became assistant to a chemist, then to another draper, and finally, in 1883, an usher at Midhurst Grammar School. At 18 he won a scholarship to study biology at the Normal School (later the Royal College) of Science, in South Kensington, London, where T.H.

Huxley was one of his teachers. He graduated from London University in 1888, becoming a science teacher and undergoing a period of ill health and financial worries, the latter aggravated by his marriage, in 1891, to his cousin, Isabel Mary Wells. The marriage was not a success, and in 1894 Wells ran off with Amy Catherine Robbins (d. 1927), a former pupil, who in 1895 became his second wife. Early writings Wells’s first published book was a Textbook of Biology (1893). With his first novel , The Time Machine (1895), which was immediately successful, he began a series of science fiction novels that revealed him as a writer of marked originality and an immense fecundity of ideas: The Wonderful Visit (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), The First Men in the Moon (1901), and The Food of the Gods (1904).

He also wrote many short stories, which were collected in The Stolen Bacillus (1895), The Plattner Story (1897), and Tales of Space and Time (1899). For a time he acquired a reputation as a prophet of the future, and indeed, in The War in the Air (1908), he foresaw certain developments in the military use of aircraft. But his imagination flourished at its best not in the manner of the comparatively mechanical anticipations of Jules Verne but in the astronomical fantasies of The First Men in the Moon and The War of the Worlds , from the latter of which the image of the Martian has passed into popular mythology. Britannica Stories Scientists Ponder Menopause in Killer Whales Behind his inventiveness lay a passionate concern for man and society, which increasingly broke into the fantasy of his science fiction, often diverting it into satire and sometimes, as in The Food of the Gods, destroying its credibility. Eventually, Wells decided to abandon science fiction for comic novels of lower middle-class life, most notably in Love and Mr. Lewisham (1900), Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul (1905), and The History of Mr.

Polly (1910). In these novels, and in Tono-Bungay (1909), he drew on memories of his own earlier life, and, through the thoughts of inarticulate yet often ambitious heroes, revealed the hopes and frustrations of clerks, shop assistants, and underpaid teachers, who had rarely before been treated in fiction with such sympathetic understanding. In these novels, too, he made his liveliest, most persuasive comment on the problems of Western society that were soon to become his main preoccupation. The sombre vision of a dying world in The Time Machine shows that, in his long-term view of humanity’s prospects, Wells felt much of the pessimism prevalent in the 1890s. In his short-term view, however, his study of biology led him to hope that human society would evolve into higher forms, and with Anticipations (1901), Mankind in the Making (1903), and A Modern Utopia (1905), he took his place in the British public’s mind as a leading preacher of the doctrine of social progress.

About this time, too, he became an active socialist, and in 1903 joined the Fabian Society , though he soon began to criticize its methods. The bitter quarrel he precipitated by his unsuccessful attempt to wrest control of the Fabian Society from George Bernard Shaw and Sidney and Beatrice Webb in 1906–07 is retold in his novel The New Machiavelli (1911), in which the Webbs are parodied as the Baileys. Middle and late works British Culture and Politics After about 1906 the pamphleteer and the novelist were in conflict in Wells, and only The History of Mr. Polly and the lighthearted Bealby (1915) can be considered primarily as fiction. His later novels are mainly discussions of social or political themes that show little concern for the novel as a literary form. Wells himself affected not to care about the literary merit of his work, and he rejected the tutelage of the American novelist Henry James , saying, “I would rather be called a journalist than an artist.” Indeed, his novel Boon (1915) included a spiteful parody of James. His next novel, Mr.

Britling Sees It Through (1916), though touched by the prejudice and shortsightedness of wartime, gives a brilliant picture of the English people in World War I . Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies World War I shook Wells’s faith in even short-term human progress, and in subsequent works he modified his conception of social evolution, putting forward the view that man could only progress if he would adapt himself to changing circumstances through knowledge and education. To help bring about this process of adaptation Wells began an ambitious work of popular education, of which the main products were The Outline of History (1920; revised 1931), The Science of Life (1931), cowritten with Julian Huxley and G.P. Wells (his elder son by his second wife), and The Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind (1932). At the same time he continued to publish works of fiction, in which his gifts of narrative and dialogue give way almost entirely to polemics. His sense of humour reappears, however, in the reminiscences of his Experiment in Autobiography (1934).

In 1933 Wells published a novelized version of a film script, The Shape of Things to Come. (Produced by Alexander Korda , the film Things to Come [1936] remains, on account of its special effects, one of the outstanding British films of the 20th century.) Wells’s version reverts to the utopianism of some earlier books, but as a whole his outlook grew steadily less optimistic, and some of his later novels contain much that is bitterly satiric. Fear of a tragic wrong turning in the development of the human race, to which he had early given imaginative expression in the grotesque animal mutations of The Island of Doctor Moreau , dominates the short novels and fables he wrote in the later 1930s. Wells was now ill and aging. With the outbreak of World War II , he lost all confidence in the future, and in Mind at the End of Its Tether (1945) he depicts a bleak vision of a world in which nature has rejected, and is destroying, humankind.

Assessment Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest In spite of an awareness of possible world catastrophe that underlay much of his earlier work and flared up again in old age, Wells in his lifetime was regarded as the chief literary spokesman of the liberal optimism that preceded World War I. No other writer has caught so vividly the energy of this period, its adventurousness, its feeling of release from the conventions of Victorian thought and propriety. Wells’s influence was enormous, both on his own generation and on that which immediately followed it. None of his contemporaries did more to encourage revolt against Christian tenets and accepted codes of behaviour, especially as regards sex, in which, both in his books and in his personal life, he was a persistent advocate of an almost complete freedom. Though in many ways hasty, ill-tempered, and contradictory, Wells was undeviating and fearless in his efforts for social equality, world peace, and what he considered to be the future good of humanity. As a creative writer his reputation rests on the early science fiction books and on the comic novels. In his science fiction, he took the ideas and fears that haunted the mind of his age and gave them symbolic expression as brilliantly conceived fantasy made credible by the quiet realism of its setting.

In the comic novels, though his psychology lacks subtlety and the construction of his plots is often awkward, he shows a fund of humour and a deep sympathy for ordinary people. Wells’s prose style is always careless and lacks grace, yet he has his own gift of phrase and a true ear for vernacular speech, especially that of the lower middle class of London and southeastern England . His best work has a vigour, vitality, and exuberance unsurpassed, in its way, by that of any other British writer of the early 20th century. H.G. Wells - Biography - IMDb H.G. Wells Biography Showing all 37 items Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (2) | Spouse (2) | Trade Mark (2) | Trivia (17) | Personal Quotes (10) Overview (4) The Man Who Invented Tomorrow Mini Bio (2) Writer, born in Bromley, Kent. He was apprenticed to a draper, tried teaching, studied biology in London, then made his mark in journalism and literature. He played a vital part in disseminating the progressive ideas which characterized the first part of the 20th-c.

He achieved fame with scientific fantasies such as The Time Machine (1895) and War of the Worlds (1898), and wrote a range of comic social novels which proved highly popular, notably Kipps (1905) and The History of Mr Polly (1910). Both kinds of novel made successful (sometimes classic) early films. A member of the Fabian Society, he was often engaged in public controversy, and wrote several socio-political works dealing with the role of science and the need for world peace, such as The Outline of History (1920) and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind - IMDb Mini Biography By: Lester A Dinerstien <lester1@earthlink.net> H.G.

Wells, born in the London suburb of Bromley in 1866, began his literary career in earnest in 1895 with the publication of his first novel, "The Time Machine." Until this first success his life had been a patchwork of unsatisfactory drapery and chemist apprenticeships that were interrupted by stints as a teacher's assistant, and eventually acceptance into London's Normal School of Science where he studied biology under Darwin's "bull dog," the great T.H. Huxley. The 1890's saw the publication of the "scientific romances" that were to make him the most successful author of his time. Following "The Time Machine" was "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1896), "The Invisible Man" (1897), "The War of the Worlds" (1898), "When the Sleeper Wakes" (1899), and "The First Men in the Moon" (1901).

After this point he turned his prolific pen to social topics, history, and even a bit of hopeful prophecy with books like "Anticipations" (1901), "The Discovery of the Future" (1902), "Mankind in the Making" (1903), "The Future in America" (1906), "The War in the Air" and "New Worlds for Old" (1908), "What is Coming" (1916), "War and the Future" (1917), "The Salvaging of Civilisation" (1921), "The Open Conspiracy" (1928), "The Shape of Things to Come" (1933), and "The New World Order" (1939). A revolutionary in thought and deed, Wells was often the subject of public controversy owing to his attitude on so-called "free love" and women's rights. He was also a life-long believer in Socialism as the means to mankind's ultimate social salvation.

His particular brand had nothing to do with the retrogressive Marxist strain and also helped bring him in conflict with other leading Socialist thinkers of his day during his brief stint with The Fabian Society. The outbreak of the First World War found a heretofore pacifist Wells changing his mind to support of this Great War against the Hohenzollern "Blood and Iron" Imperial aggression. He reacted by writing a pamphlet in 1914 addressing the anti-war and pacifist elements in Britain entitled "The War That Will End War." Its title became proverbial almost instantly and is used to refer to the First World War even today. After spending time with the British government's War Office in the Propaganda Department and helping to define a clear set of war aims, he resigned and returned to writing propaganda his way. Even before the Great War began he published "The World Set Free" early in 1914.

It was a prophetic novel about a world war against Imperial Germany and her "Central European Allies" which included a remarkably accurate forecast of atomic warfare and even coined the term "atomic bomb." He was among the first to call for a post war League of Nations but was bitterly disappointed with and critical of the actual League that developed. He spent the early part of the 1920's writing "The Outline of History," which like so many of his previous works was also enormously successful on both sides of the Atlantic. The 1930's found H.G. profoundly disturbed by the rising din of Nietzschean nationalism from Nazi Germany and Fascism in Italy. His critical writings on the aggressive "Krupp cum Kaiser" Imperial Germany coupled with his outright vicious attacks on Adolf Hitler and his accomplices earned H.G. Wells the distinction of having his "anti-German" books burned by Goebbels during the infamous book bonfires at German universities. The name "H.G. Wells" also appeared very near the top of a list compiled by the SS/SD command staff of those intellectuals and politicians slated for immediate liquidation upon the invasion of Britain by the Nazis. Winston Churchill was also named.

He remained at his London flat off Regent's Park throughout the war and walked his own fire watch, even as his equally wealthy neighbors fled the Luftwaffe's Blitz to their comfortable country estates. He died quietly at home on 13 August 1946. In any appraisal the 20th century, H.G. Wells must be considered among its very most important and influential thinkers and authors. Evidence of his influence can be found in Hollywood to this day in recent films such as "The Island of Dr. Moreau," the Dreamworks version of "The Time Machine;" and also the unspoken but obvious (and rather clumsy) copying of his original ideas and themes in films like "Independence Day" and "Hollow Man." The H.G. Wells Collection eBook by H.G. Wells - 9781531257699 | Kobo Or, get it for 2400 Kobo Super Points! See if you have enough points for this eBook. Sign in Synopsis Show more Show less Karpathos publishes the greatest works of history’s greatest authors and collects them to make it easy and affordable for readers to have them all at the push of a button.

All of our collections include a linked table of contents. H.G. Wells was a prominent British author who wrote a prolific amount of books and essays in different genres such as science fiction, history, and politics. Wells’ most notable science fiction works include The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, and The Island of Doctor Moreau. This collection includes the following: NOVELS: The War of the Worlds The Time Machine The Island of Doctor Moreau The Wonderful Visit The First Men in the Moon The Sea Lady The Food of the Gods A Modern Utopia In the Days of the Comet The War in the Air Tono-Bungay H.G. Wells - IMDb IMDb Writer | Actor Writer, born in Bromley, Kent. He was apprenticed to a draper, tried teaching, studied biology in London, then made his mark in journalism and literature. He played a vital part in disseminating the progressive ideas which characterized the first part of the 20th-c. He achieved fame with scientific fantasies such as The Time Machine (1895) and War ...

See full bio » Born: a list of 31 people created 25 Mar 2013 a list of 43 people created 03 Apr 2013 a list of 75 people created 22 Sep 2013 a list of 35 people created 5 months ago a list of 41 people created 1 month ago Do you have a demo reel? Add it to your IMDbPage How much of H.G. Wells's work have you seen? User Polls 1 win & 1 nomination. See more awards » Known For 2007 The History of Mr Polly (TV Movie) (novel) 2006 Overlap (Short) (story "The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes") 2000 The Invisible Man (TV Series) (book "Invisible Man" - 1 episode) - Pilot (2000) ...

(book "Invisible Man") 1998 Deadly Tales (Video) (story "The Crystal Egg" - segment "Crystal Glazing") 1982 The Magic Shop (Short) (short story) 1981 I giochi del diavolo (TV Mini-Series) (short story "The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham" - 1 episode) - Il sogno dell'altro (1981) ... (short story "The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham") 1981 War of the Worlds (Video Game) (novel) 1980 Spine Chillers (TV Series) (5 episodes) 1977 Chelovek-nevidimka (TV Movie) (novel) 1976 Riding with Death (TV Movie) (novel "The Invisible Man") Gemini Man (TV Mini-Series) (book "Invisible Man" - 10 episodes, 1976) (novel "The Invisible Man" - 1 episode, 1976) (novel - 1 episode, 1976) - Return of the Lion (1976) ...

(book "Invisible Man") - Targets (1976) ... (novel "The Invisible Man") The Invisible Man (TV Series) (novel "The Invisible Man" - 9 episodes, 1975) (novel - 2 episodes, 1975) - Sight Unseen (1975) ... (novel "The Invisible Man") 1964 First Men in the Moon (from the original story by) 1964 Ann Veronica (TV Series) (novel - 4 episodes) - One Step from the Pavement (1963) ... (short story "The Magic Shop") 1962 The DuPont Show of the Week (TV Series) (short story "In the Country of the Blind" - 1 episode) - The Richest Man in Bogota (1962) ...

(short story "In the Country of the Blind") 1961 Übergewicht (TV Movie) (story) 1960 Kipps (TV Mini-Series) (novel - 8 episodes) 1959 The Truth About Pyecraft (TV Movie) (short story) 1957 Armchair Theatre (TV Series) (novel - 1 episode) Your Favorite Story (TV Series) (short story "In the Country of the Blind" - 1 episode, 1954) (story - 1 episode, 1954) - The Bedford House Conspiracy (1954) ...

(short story "In the Country of the Blind") 1949 The Time Machine (TV Movie) (story) 1948 Actor's Studio (TV Series) (story - 1 episode) 1944 The Invisible Man's Revenge (suggested by "The Invisible Man") 1942 Invisible Agent (novel "The Invisible Man") 1936 The Man Who Could Work Miracles (scenario and dialogue) / (short story) 1936 Things to Come (novel "The Shape of Things to Come") / (screenplay) 1928 Blue Bottles (Short) (story) 1928 Daydreams (Short) (story) 1902 A Trip to the Moon (Short) (novel "First Men in the Moon" - uncredited) Hide 2008 What Lies Beneath (Video documentary short) Himself 2006 Prophets of Science Fiction (TV Movie documentary) Himself 2004 The Greatest Canadian (TV Mini-Series documentary) Himself 1991 The Complete Citizen Kane (TV Movie documentary) Himself 1982 In Search of...

(TV Series documentary) Himself 1961 The Twentieth Century (TV Series documentary) Himself Book: "When the Sleeper Wakes" See more » Publicity Listings: 7 Print Biographies | 11 Portrayals | 2 Articles | See more » Alternate Names: Cynicism is humor in ill health. See more » Trivia: Cheated on his wives repeatedly. He even demanded of his second wife the "right" to take lovers. His son with journalist Rebecca West, Anthony West, wrote about their relationship in "Aspects of a Life" (1984). He also had a child with Amber Reeves, the daughter of one of London's most prominent families. His other lovers included Odette Keun, Moura Budberg and Margaret Sanger. Wells may have ... See more » Trademark: His main characters often are scientists whose experiments on themselves or others end tragically (examples include 'The Invisible Man', 'The Island of Dr. Moreau', 'The Time Machine') See more » Nickname: The Man Who Invented Tomorrow Star Sign: H. G. Wells | Scholastic H. G.

Wells COUNTRY OF BIRTH United Kingdom Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, England, on Sept. 21, 1866. His father was a shopkeeper in a small way and a professional cricketer; his mother served from time to time as housekeeper at the nearby estate of Uppark ("Bladesover" in Tono-Bungay). Though Wells attended Morley's School in Bromley, his real education came from omnivorous reading, a habit formed in 1874 while he was laid up for some months with a broken leg. Between 1880 and 1883 he spent most of his time as a draper's apprentice in Windsor and Southsea, a way of life for which he later recorded his profound detestation in Kipps. After a year as a teacher in a private school, he won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in South Kensington in 1884. There he made a promising start as a student under Thomas Henry Huxley, but his interest faltered in the following year, and he left without a degree in 1887.

He then taught in private schools for four years, not taking his B.S. degree until 1890. The year 1891 saw Wells established in London, teaching in a correspondence college, married to his cousin Isabel, and the author of a remarkable article on "The Rediscovery of the Unique" in the Fortnightly Review. After much writing on educational subjects, he began his sensational literary career with The Time Machine in 1895. Meanwhile, he had given up teaching and had left Isabel for one of his brightest students, Amy Catherine ("Jane") Robbins, whom he married in 1895. There followed a series of scientific romances (most notably The Island of Dr. Moreau, 1896; The Invisible Man, 1897; The War of the Worlds, 1898; The First Men in the Moon, 1901; and The War in the Air, 1908), which form the most familiar part of his work to modern readers. But he grew dissatisfied with the limitations imposed by this kind of writing, and in 1900 he moved into the novel proper with Love and Mr.

Lewisham, a story of his student days at South Kensington. On this and particularly on Kipps (1905), Tono-Bungay (1909), and The History of Mr. Polly (1910), his serious literary reputation primarily depends. Biography written by Gordon N. Ray in the Encyclopedia Americana. For more information on this online reference, visit Grolier.Online . Though these books are novels, they are informed by a spirit of profound hostility to the Victorian social order and to the body of orthodox opinion that supported it. Desiring to make explicit his criticism of the past and his hopes for the future, Wells embarked on his career as a "prophet" with Anticipations (1901), Mankind in the Making (1903), and A Modern Utopia (1905). He thereby came to know George Bernard Shaw, who claimed that he and Wells between them had "changed the mind of Europe," and the other leaders of the Fabian Society. Joining this organization in 1903, he tried in 1906 and 1907 to turn it into a large-scale operation devoted to mass propaganda and political action.

He was defeated in this effort by the "Old Gang" under Shaw's leadership, however, and he resigned in 1908. This experience inspired his last novel of literary importance, The New Machiavelli (1911), into which he introduced brilliant portraits of noted Fabians. In 1912 Wells began a ten-year relationship with the writer Rebecca West, who became the mother of their son, Anthony West, in 1914. Beginning in 1898, Henry James, who saw in Wells the most gifted writer of the age, had sought to make him a disciplined artist in fiction. For a time Wells tried to learn the lesson of the master, but after The New Machiavelli he turned frankly to the "dialogue novel" in which he could freely and rapidly give expression to his current preoccupations. He sealed his repudiation of James by a devastating parody in Boon (1915). During World War I, Wells proved himself to be an expert propagandist, particularly in Mr. Britling Sees It Through (1916).

Having coined the hopeful phrase "the war that will end war" in 1914, Wells was thoroughly disillusioned by the peace settlement at which the Allies actually arrived. In the conviction that the future would be "a race between education and catastrophe," he endeavored to make the essentials of knowledge available to the great public through three massive works: the best-selling Outline of History (1920); The Science of Life (1931), in which he collaborated with his oldest son, George Philip Wells, and Sir Julian Huxley; and The Work, Wealth, and Happiness (1932). Meanwhile he had emerged as a popular celebrity, living the life of "telegrams and anger" in the great world, with each new shift in his opinions announced through syndicated articles. His key work of this period is The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution (1928), in which he urged the case for an integrated global civilization. Wells's last book of enduring value was his Experiment in Autobiography (1934).

But he continued to average two titles a year: some widely influential, such as The Shape of Things to Come (1933), which did much to awaken a large audience to the dangers threatening the West; and some vastly entertaining, such as Apropos of Dolores (1938), his hilarious tribute to an ex-mistress. He lived through World War II in his house on Regent's Park, abusing the current objects of his disfavor, large and small. In his last book, a brief essay entitled Mind at the End of Its Tether (1945), he expressed the blankest pessimism about humankind's future prospects. Wells died in London on Aug. 13, 1946. Load More

Question: Which author's works include The History Of Mr Polly, The Time Machine and The War Of The Worlds?
Answer: H.G. Wells