H.G. Wells


Born
in Bromley, Kent, England
September 21, 1866

Died
August 13, 1946

Genre

Influences


Herbert George Wells was born to a working class family in Kent, England. Young Wells received a spotty education, interrupted by several illnesses and family difficulties, and became a draper's apprentice as a teenager. The headmaster of Midhurst Grammar School, where he had spent a year, arranged for him to return as an "usher," or student teacher. Wells earned a government scholarship in 1884, to study biology under Thomas Henry Huxley at the Normal School of Science. Wells earned his bachelor of science and doctor of science degrees at the University of London. After marrying his cousin, Isabel, Wells began to supplement his teaching salary with short stories and freelance articles, then books, including The Time Machine (1895), The Isl ...more

Average rating: 3.82 · 1,476,890 ratings · 69,892 reviews · 5,361 distinct worksSimilar authors
The Time Machine

3.89 avg rating — 563,526 ratings — published 1895 — 4049 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The War of the Worlds

3.83 avg rating — 348,626 ratings — published 1898 — 5848 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Invisible Man

3.63 avg rating — 216,493 ratings — published 1897 — 4118 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Island of Dr. Moreau

by
3.73 avg rating — 134,787 ratings — published 1896 — 1262 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Time Machine / The Invi...

by
4.10 avg rating — 56,569 ratings — published 2007 — 68 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The First Men in the Moon

3.66 avg rating — 18,496 ratings — published 1901 — 13 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Time Machine / The War ...

4.14 avg rating — 8,859 ratings86 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Country of the Blind

3.84 avg rating — 9,352 ratings — published 1904 — 187 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
When the Sleeper Wakes

3.36 avg rating — 5,634 ratings — published 1899 — 2 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Food of the Gods

3.43 avg rating — 5,354 ratings — published 1904 — 4 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
More books by H.G. Wells…
The Time Machine The Island of Dr. Moreau The Invisible Man The War of the Worlds
(4 books)
by
3.83 avg rating — 1,330,969 ratings

H.G. Wells Classic Collecti... H.G. Wells Classic Collecti...
(2 books)
by
4.20 avg rating — 309 ratings

L'homme invisible, Tome 1 L'homme invisible, Tome 2
(2 books)
by
3.84 avg rating — 299 ratings


Related News

  Cross-genre explorers, history nerds, and recovering English majors will want to spend some time with this specially curated collection...
137 likes · 17 comments
Readers with adventurous frontal lobes will be happy in July—this month’s batch of new books features some particularly bold ideas and...
94 likes · 24 comments
Welcome back, once again, to the perennial tradition of summer reading. Thanks to display-technology advances in e-book readers, you can...
315 likes · 82 comments
Quotes by H.G. Wells  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams.”
H.G. Wells

“Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.”
H.G. Wells, The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman

“If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.”
H.G. Wells

Polls

June 2015 Revisit the Shelf Group Reread

1855, North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, 521 pages
 
  9 votes, 23.7%

 
  7 votes, 18.4%

 
  5 votes, 13.2%

 
  4 votes, 10.5%

1980, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, 536 pages
 
  4 votes, 10.5%

 
  3 votes, 7.9%

1952, East of Eden by John Steinbeck, 601 pages
 
  2 votes, 5.3%

1847, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, 507 pages
 
  2 votes, 5.3%

1895, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, 118 pages
 
  1 vote, 2.6%

 
  1 vote, 2.6%

1965, Dune by Frank Herbert, 604 pages
 
  0 votes, 0.0%

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author