Популярните класически фантазии на Х. Дж. Уелс, сътворени в навечерието на 20. век, предупреждават, че нашата цивилизация може да се разпадне и без помощта на безмилостен външен враг, ако хората злоупотребят със своя разум, ако не съумеят да използват интелигентно и смело способността си да посрещат постоянно случващите се промени, рушащи вечното статукво. ВОЙНАТА НА СВЕТОВЕТЕ (1898) – Оправдан ли е ужасът на човечеството от сблъсъка на две цивилизации, еднакво подозрителни и нетолерантни една към друга? МАШИНАТА НА ВРЕМЕТО (1895) – Едно пътуване в годината 802701поставя шокиращи въпроси за прогреса, социалния ред и съдбата на света. ОСТРОВЪТ НА ДОКТОР МОРО (1896) – Има ли опасност жестокостта да се превърне във всеобща човешка страст и хората да се изродят в същества, лишени от състрадание?
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 Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898).
Wells created a mild scandal when he divorced his cousin to marry one of his best students, Amy Catherine Robbins. Although his second marriage was lasting and produced two sons, Wells was an unabashed advocate of free (as opposed to "indiscriminate") love. He continued to openly have extra-marital liaisons, most famously with Margaret Sanger, and a ten-year relationship with the author Rebecca West, who had one of his two out-of-wedlock children. A one-time member of the Fabian Society, Wells sought active change. His 100 books included many novels, as well as nonfiction, such as A Modern Utopia (1905), The Outline of History (1920), A Short History of the World (1922), The Shape of Things to Come (1933), and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1932). One of his booklets was Crux Ansata, An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. Although Wells toyed briefly with the idea of a "divine will" in his book, God the Invisible King (1917), it was a temporary aberration. Wells used his international fame to promote his favorite causes, including the prevention of war, and was received by government officials around the world. He is best-remembered as an early writer of science fiction and futurism.
He was also an outspoken socialist. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Fathers of Science Fiction". D. 1946.
HG Wells' fiction was heavily influenced by his fervent belief in Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Wells background helps us understand why he embraced Darwinism so readily and used it as an ongoing subtext in his work.
Wells was born in 1866, in the middle of the raging debate on evolution, with scientists advocating for this explanation of the origin of life and the Church very much against. In view of his working class roots, however, Wells would not likely have been exposed to this discussion until 1883, when he entered the environment of higher education after several failed apprenticeships. Even at this time, acceptance of Darwin's theory was hardly mainstream: the bishops of the predominant Church of England only relented their opposition in 1890.
Wells excelled in his new environment, self-admittedly due to his teacher, Thomas Huxley, who first introduced him to Darwinism. So influenced was he by Huxley and evolutionary theory that, in his autobiography, Wells wrote: "Darwin and Huxley... belong to the same aristocracy as Plato and Aristotle and Galileo..."
After dabbling in short stories, Wells began his writing career in earnest in 1895, with the publication of his first novel, The Time Machine, referring to evolutionary theory when he described the Eloi and the Morlocks. He returned to Darwin's theory over again in other books, including The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), when Moreau boasted he could do "better than evolution," and The Country of the Blind (1904), with native adaptation "over 14 generations" to life in darkness. The theory of natural selection is the star of the ending in "The War of the Worlds."
For Wells, evolution was not only a theory of life, it provided a scientific rationale for the socialist ideal he embraced, where people like him--marred by the accident of lowly birth--could succeed. Even in his last book, A Mind At the End of Its Tether (1945), Wells referred to evolution when he postulated that humanity will be rejected by nature and replaced by another species. In fact, it is entirely fitting that Darwin's theory should feature in the bookends of this extraordinary writer.
Three great Wells stories, the reader can imaginatively travel to the future, be attacked by martians and meet a really mad doctor who's turning animals to people.