H.G. Wells: Father of Science Fiction
Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer prolific across many genres, from science fiction to social commentary. He is most known today as a pioneering science fiction novelist, sometimes called the “father of science fiction,” and has been compared by critics to Shakespeare for his mastery of the form.
Early Life and Education
Wells was born on 21 September 1866 at Atlas House in Bromley, Kent, the fourth and last child of Joseph Wells, a former domestic gardener turned shopkeeper and professional cricketer, and Sarah Neal, a former domestic servant. His family acquired a shop selling china and sporting goods through an inheritance, though it struggled to prosper due to poor stock and location.
A broken leg in 1874 left young Wells bedridden for an extended period. During his recovery, he began reading books from the local library brought by his father, an experience that sparked his devotion to literature and desire to write. He entered Thomas Morley’s Commercial Academy in 1874, a private school where the curriculum emphasized penmanship and practical arithmetic rather than broader learning. He remained there until 1880.
Financial difficulties forced the family to seek apprenticeships for their sons. From 1880 to 1883, Wells worked unhappily as a draper at Hyde’s Drapery Emporium in Southsea, enduring thirteen-hour days and dormitory sleeping arrangements. These experiences later inspired his novels The Wheels of Chance, The History of Mr Polly, and Kipps, all of which critiqued both the draper’s life and society’s distribution of wealth. He subsequently failed as a chemist’s assistant as well.
Wells’s mother worked as a lady’s maid at Uppark, a country house in West Sussex, where employment conditions prevented her from maintaining a household with her husband. The family lived separately thereafter, though without divorcing. At Uppark, Wells discovered a magnificent library where he read widely, including Plato’s Republic, Thomas More’s Utopia, and works by Daniel Defoe—texts that would shape his later utopian and speculative thinking.
Career and Achievements
Wells’s earliest specialized training was in biology, a foundation that informed his ethical thinking within a Darwinian context. He wrote more than forty novels and dozens of short stories, alongside substantial non-fiction spanning social commentary, politics, history, popular science, satire, biography, and autobiography.
His science fiction works established him as a major literary figure. The Time Machine (1895), his first novella, introduced time travel to fiction. The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) explored biological engineering, The Invisible Man (1897) imagined invisibility as a scientific premise, and The War of the Worlds (1898) depicted alien invasion. Later works included The War in the Air (1907), a military science fiction novel, and When the Sleeper Wakes (1910), a dystopian vision. These novels employed what became known as “Wells’s law”—the technique of rendering fantastic scenarios convincing by grounding them in commonplace detail alongside a single extraordinary assumption. Joseph Conrad praised this approach in 1898, calling Wells “O Realist of the Fantastic!”
Beyond science fiction, Wells wrote novels of social realism. Kipps (1905) and The History of Mr Polly (1910) depicted lower-middle-class English life with such acuity that critics suggested he was a worthy successor to Charles Dickens. Tono-Bungay (1909) attempted a diagnosis of English society as a whole, demonstrating his range across social strata.
Wells was an outspoken socialist from a young age and, for much of his adult life, a passionate advocate of eugenics and involuntary euthanasia, arguing that “sterilisation of failure” was necessary for socialism to succeed—a position he largely recanted by 1940. He was also a pacifist sympathizer, though not consistently so, particularly at the outbreak of the First World War. In his later years, he devoted less effort to fiction and more to expounding his political and social views, sometimes identifying as a journalist.
Notable Events and Milestones
Wells was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times, recognition of his literary stature. As a futurist and social critic, he foresaw technological and social developments including aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television, and something resembling the World Wide Web—predictions that earned him a reputation as prophetic.
In 1934, Wells co-founded The Diabetic Association (now Diabetes UK), reflecting his personal experience as a diabetic. Brian Aldiss later referred to him as the “Shakespeare of science fiction,” while Charles Fort called him a “wild talent,” both assessments capturing his imaginative range and influence on the genre.
Awards and Honors
Wells received four nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature, though he did not win. His influence on science fiction and social thought was recognized throughout his lifetime and has endured long after his death.
Additional Resources
Wells’s extensive body of work and his life remain subjects of scholarly study. Readers seeking deeper exploration of his novels, social theories, and biographical details will find comprehensive information in Wikipedia’s biographical entry and in dedicated literary archives and biographies devoted to his career and legacy.
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