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 · 1,477,261 ratings · 69,925 reviews · 5,365 distinct worksSimilar authors
The Time Machine

3.89 avg rating — 563,697 ratings — published 1895 — 6578 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The War of the Worlds

3.83 avg rating — 348,706 ratings — published 1898 — 5848 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Invisible Man

3.63 avg rating — 216,535 ratings — published 1897 — 22 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Island of Dr. Moreau

by
3.73 avg rating — 134,812 ratings — published 1896 — 3477 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Time Machine / The Invi...

by
4.10 avg rating — 56,568 ratings — published 2007 — 68 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The First Men in the Moon

3.66 avg rating — 18,502 ratings — published 1901 — 13 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Time Machine / The War ...

4.14 avg rating — 8,859 ratings — published 1950 — 86 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Country of the Blind

3.84 avg rating — 9,365 ratings — published 1904 — 187 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
When the Sleeper Wakes

3.36 avg rating — 5,635 ratings — published 1899 — 159 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Food of the Gods

3.43 avg rating — 5,355 ratings — published 1904 — 1374 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 — 1,331,333 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

November 2014 Old School Classic Poll

Which book would you like to read for our November 2014 Old School Classic Group Read?

 
  27 votes, 20.1%

1842, Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, 464 pages
 
  24 votes, 17.9%

1872, Middlemarch by George Eliot, 904 pages
 
  14 votes, 10.4%

1896, The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, 157 pages
 
  12 votes, 9.0%

 
  12 votes, 9.0%

 
  10 votes, 7.5%

 
  9 votes, 6.7%

 
  9 votes, 6.7%

 
  7 votes, 5.2%

1833, Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac, 200 pages
 
  3 votes, 2.2%

 
  3 votes, 2.2%

 
  2 votes, 1.5%

 
  1 vote, 0.7%

1834, Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac, 370 pages
 
  1 vote, 0.7%

 
  0 votes, 0.0%

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author