Herbert George Wells is often called the great English writer who looked into the future. Indeed, he was the first to warn the bourgeois world of a great danger. He watched with anxiety the chaotic use of scientific achievements and said that if the countries of the world went on living without state planning, and people did not develop a feeling of responsibility for the fate of others, then future generations would meet with great suffering and destruction Surely, there is no greater destruction than a scientific destruction Wells guessed what might happen In imagination he saw our planet circling round the sun, ruined and lifeless Herbert George Wells was born in the small town of Bromley, now a section of Greater London. He was the second son in the family of three boys He was born on the 21st of. September, 1866. His mother had been a lady’s maid, and his father had been a gardener. Later the father became a shopkeeper. At the same time he was a professional player of the national English game of cricket.
Herbert was eight years old when one day, while on the cricket field with his father, he met with an accident and broke his leg. While his leg was healing, he took to reading books and got acquainted with natural history. From that time on, the world that had seemed to Herbert limited by Bromley, expanded; and it never ceased expanding as long as he lived. Herbert's mother wished him to become a shopman. He was sent to the Town of South Sea to be trained in a drapery shop. But he longed for a higher education He could not stand his life and ran away before his training was up His life at that time was a constant struggle for learning and for an opportunity to make a living.
There was a grammar school near London where Wells took his chance as a schoolmaster in natural sciences He lived in the school and getting up at five in the morning worked hard at books on science The result was that his pupils entered universities with excellent marks Wells meant to go on teaching, but suddenly he was offered a year's biological course in teacher training He would study under professor Julian Huxley at the Normal School of Science in London University With this professor. Wells was able to satisfy his thirst for knowledge. All his life biology remained the science that interested him most. It influenced most of his works.
Wells had a restless mind. He was always energetic, he talked about everything, he had ideas about everything. His generous nature combined science with social problems He and his fellow students went to the meetings of the Fabian Society. They were inspired by the speeches of Bernard Shaw.
Students of the Normal School were the first in England to get a stipend, but the sum was so small that Wells could not afford dinner more than three times a week and gradually his health tailed Day by day he got weaker and weaker.
On leaving the University he had to resume his teaching career in another town at a little school. Soon an accident in the playing ground forced him to give up his work. During the long illness which followed, Wells took to writing articles for the papers in order to live. Then writing took hold of Wells and he could not give it up. He started with short critical articles and then began to write on science Wells had a universal mind. He became a famous writer. In 1893 Wells married Catherine Robbins. Having also been a student of biology, she understood Wells and became his lifelong friend. She was a severe critic of his writings and at the same time his assistant, his efficient secretary and typist.
The First World War brought about a crisis in the outlook of the great writer. At the beginning he believed that the war would teach all nations to live in peace and that the peoples of the world would want to build up a new society. He expressed his ideas on the imperialist war in a series of articles. They were later collected in one book called "The War That Will End War" (1914).
The Great October Social Revolution of 1917 shook wells to the core. In the autumn of 1920 he made a trip to Russia, with a view to organizing help for her. He had a conversation with Lenin which he described in his book “Russia in the Shadows.” The title meant that Russia was as yet unknown to the western world, but it would soon develop its resources and culture and come out into the sunlight.
Fourteen years later Wells visited the Soviet Union again and he was surprised at the enormous improvements achieved to such a short time.
During the Second World War Wells wrote against fascism. When the war was over, he saw with great disappointment that the human mind was unable to triumph over the power or technological destruction that threatened the existence of mankind. It was only to be hoped that a better human race would one day inhabit this planet.
Wells lived nearly 80 years. He died on the 13th of August, 1940.
Herbert Wells devoted more than fifty years of his life to literary work. He was the author of more than forty novels and many short stones, articles and social tracts. His novels are of three types science fiction, realistic novels on contemporary problems and social tracts in the form of novels.
Wells belonged to the world of science. It played an important role in his best works, but the principal theme, even in these works is not science but the social problems of the day. His creative work is divided into two periods:
The first period begins in 1895 and lasts up to the outbreak of the great imperialist war. World War I His famous works are:
The Time Machine (1895)
The Invisible Man (1897)
The War of the Worlds (1897)
The First Men in the Moon (1901) and other works.
The second period comprises works written from 1914 up to the end of World War II. His most important works are:
The War That Will End War (1914)
Russia in the Shadows (1920)
The World of William Clissold (1926)
Mr Blettsworthy on Rampole Island (1928)
Experiment in Autobiography (1934) and many other works.
Wells' best works are his science fiction. They give the reader a forward-looking habit, and this is exactly the aim of the writer. He believed in the great liberation that science could bring to man, but he blamed the bourgeois system because it used scientific achievements for evil ends.
In the novels of the 2nd period Wells combines the criticism of society as a whole with the life of an individual. Thus Wells keeps up the tradition of Critical Realism in the English novel. The works of Herbert Wells are rather satirical than utopian. They are pessimistic on the whole and can be characterized as anti-utopia.
Herbert was eight years old when one day, while on the cricket field with his father, he met with an accident and broke his leg. While his leg was healing, he took to reading books and got acquainted with natural history. From that time on, the world that had seemed to Herbert limited by Bromley, expanded; and it never ceased expanding as long as he lived. Herbert's mother wished him to become a shopman. He was sent to the Town of South Sea to be trained in a drapery shop. But he longed for a higher education He could not stand his life and ran away before his training was up His life at that time was a constant struggle for learning and for an opportunity to make a living.
There was a grammar school near London where Wells took his chance as a schoolmaster in natural sciences He lived in the school and getting up at five in the morning worked hard at books on science The result was that his pupils entered universities with excellent marks Wells meant to go on teaching, but suddenly he was offered a year's biological course in teacher training He would study under professor Julian Huxley at the Normal School of Science in London University With this professor. Wells was able to satisfy his thirst for knowledge. All his life biology remained the science that interested him most. It influenced most of his works.
Wells had a restless mind. He was always energetic, he talked about everything, he had ideas about everything. His generous nature combined science with social problems He and his fellow students went to the meetings of the Fabian Society. They were inspired by the speeches of Bernard Shaw.
Students of the Normal School were the first in England to get a stipend, but the sum was so small that Wells could not afford dinner more than three times a week and gradually his health tailed Day by day he got weaker and weaker.
On leaving the University he had to resume his teaching career in another town at a little school. Soon an accident in the playing ground forced him to give up his work. During the long illness which followed, Wells took to writing articles for the papers in order to live. Then writing took hold of Wells and he could not give it up. He started with short critical articles and then began to write on science Wells had a universal mind. He became a famous writer. In 1893 Wells married Catherine Robbins. Having also been a student of biology, she understood Wells and became his lifelong friend. She was a severe critic of his writings and at the same time his assistant, his efficient secretary and typist.
The First World War brought about a crisis in the outlook of the great writer. At the beginning he believed that the war would teach all nations to live in peace and that the peoples of the world would want to build up a new society. He expressed his ideas on the imperialist war in a series of articles. They were later collected in one book called "The War That Will End War" (1914).
The Great October Social Revolution of 1917 shook wells to the core. In the autumn of 1920 he made a trip to Russia, with a view to organizing help for her. He had a conversation with Lenin which he described in his book “Russia in the Shadows.” The title meant that Russia was as yet unknown to the western world, but it would soon develop its resources and culture and come out into the sunlight.
Fourteen years later Wells visited the Soviet Union again and he was surprised at the enormous improvements achieved to such a short time.
During the Second World War Wells wrote against fascism. When the war was over, he saw with great disappointment that the human mind was unable to triumph over the power or technological destruction that threatened the existence of mankind. It was only to be hoped that a better human race would one day inhabit this planet.
Wells lived nearly 80 years. He died on the 13th of August, 1940.
Herbert Wells devoted more than fifty years of his life to literary work. He was the author of more than forty novels and many short stones, articles and social tracts. His novels are of three types science fiction, realistic novels on contemporary problems and social tracts in the form of novels.
Wells belonged to the world of science. It played an important role in his best works, but the principal theme, even in these works is not science but the social problems of the day. His creative work is divided into two periods:
The first period begins in 1895 and lasts up to the outbreak of the great imperialist war. World War I His famous works are:
The Time Machine (1895)
The Invisible Man (1897)
The War of the Worlds (1897)
The First Men in the Moon (1901) and other works.
The second period comprises works written from 1914 up to the end of World War II. His most important works are:
The War That Will End War (1914)
Russia in the Shadows (1920)
The World of William Clissold (1926)
Mr Blettsworthy on Rampole Island (1928)
Experiment in Autobiography (1934) and many other works.
Wells' best works are his science fiction. They give the reader a forward-looking habit, and this is exactly the aim of the writer. He believed in the great liberation that science could bring to man, but he blamed the bourgeois system because it used scientific achievements for evil ends.
In the novels of the 2nd period Wells combines the criticism of society as a whole with the life of an individual. Thus Wells keeps up the tradition of Critical Realism in the English novel. The works of Herbert Wells are rather satirical than utopian. They are pessimistic on the whole and can be characterized as anti-utopia.
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