English novelist, journalist, and historian, whose science-fiction stories have been filmed many times.

Herbert George Wells was born on September 21, 1866 in Bromley, Kent, England. His father, Joseph Wells, was a shopkeeper and a professional cricket player, and his mother, Neal, served from time to time as a housekeeper at the nearby estate of Uppark. His father's business failed and to elevate the family to middle-class status. Wells was apprenticed like his brothers to be a draper, spending the years between 1880 and 1883 in Windsor and Southsea.

In the story Arthur Kipps is raised by his aunt and uncle. Kipps is also apprenticed to be a draper. After learning that is been left a fortune, Kipps enters the upper-class society, which Wells describes with sharp social criticism.

In 1883 H.G.Wells became a teacher/pupil at Midhurst Grammar School. He obtained a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London and studied there biology under T.H. Huxley. However, his interest faltered and in 1887 he left without a degree. He taught in private schools for four years, not taking his B.S. degree until 1890. In the next year he settled in London, married his cousin Isabel and continued his career as a teacher in a correspondence college. In 1893 H.G. Wells became a full-time writer.

Later he left Isabel for one of his brightest students, Amy Catherine, whom he married in 1895.

His works are scince-fiction classics as THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1896), in which a mad scientist transforms animals into human creatures, THE INVISIBLE MAN (1897), a Faustian story of a scientist who has tampered with nature in pursuit of superhuman powers, and The War of the Worlds (1898), (perhaps his most famous popular work), a novel an invasion of Martians. The story appeared at a time about when people speculated that there could be life on the Red Planet. Inspite of the technological superiority of the Martians, their plan fails - they start to die off because they have no immunity to the bacteria of Earth. THE FIRST MEN ON THE MOON (1901) was prophetic description of the methodology of space flight, and THE WAR IN THE AIR (1908) was a hybrid that places Kipps-like Cockney hero in the context of a catastrophic aerial war.
The basic principles in THE TIME MACHINE es contained materials regarding time as the fourth dimension - years later Albert Einstein published his theory of the fourdimensional continuum of space-time.
Wells’s novels are highly entertaining. The science may not be accurate, but the adventure and philosophy in those books makes Wells‘ early science fiction fun and fascinating to read.

Dissatisfied with his literary work, Wells moved into the novel genre, with LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM (1900). He strenghtened his reputation as a serous writer with Kipps, TONO-BUNGAY (1909), and THE HISTORY OF MR. POLLY (1909), an ode to vanished England. He also published critical pamphlets attacking the Victorian social order, among them ANTICIPATIONS (1901), MANKIND IN THE MAKING (1903), and A MODERN UTOPIA (1905).

In his novel THE NEW MACHIAVELLI (1911) he drew portraits of the noted Fabians. At the outbreak of war in 1914, Wells was involved in a love affair with the young English author Rebecca West, who influenced his work and life deeply.

Later Wells published several non-fiction works, among them THE OUTLINE OF HISTORY (1920), THE SCIENCE OF LIFE (1929-39), written in collaboration with Sir Julian Huxley and George Philip Wells, and EXPERIMENT IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1934). At this time Wells had gained the status as a popular celebrity, and he continued to write prolifically. In 1917 he was a member of Reserch Committee for the League of Nations and published several books about the world organization. In the early 1920s he was a labour candidate for Parliament. Between the years 1924 and 1933 Wells lived mainly in France. From 1934 to 1946 he was the International president of PEN. In 1934 he had discussions with both Stalin and Roosevelt, trying to recruit them to his world-saving schemes.

"The professional military mind is by necessity an inferior and unimaginative mind; no man of high intellectual quality would willingly imprison his gifts in such calling." (from The Outline of History, 1920). In THE HOLY TERROR (1939) Wells studied the psychological development of a modern dictator based on the careers of Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler. In 1938 Orson Welles' Mercury Theater radio broadcast, based on The War of the Worlds, caused a panic which spread across the United States. Wells lived through World War II in his house in Regent's Park, refusing to let the “Blitz” drive him out of London. His last book, MIND AT THE END OF ITS TETHER (1945), expressed pessimism about mankind's future prospects.
Wells died in London on August 13. 1946.