H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells was an English novelist, journalist, and social commentator whose speculative fiction helped establish modern science fiction. His best-known novels include The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, and The War of the Worlds.

The Time Machine: H. G. Wells’s 1895 novel follows a traveler who journeys into Earth’s distant future. Its divided future humanity turns evolutionary speculation into a landmark narrative.
Evolution: Evolution is the change in heritable characteristics of populations across generations. Wells adapted evolutionary ideas to imagine humanity’s distant descendants and animal ancestry.
Thomas Henry Huxley: Thomas Henry Huxley was an English biologist and public advocate of Darwinian evolution. Huxley taught biology at the Normal School of Science, where Wells studied.
Science fiction: Science fiction is imaginative writing that explores possible worlds shaped by science, technology, or speculative change. Wells’s early novels helped establish the genre’s modern form.
The War of the Worlds: H. G. Wells’s 1898 novel depicts a Martian invasion of England. Its technologically superior invaders reverse the logic of imperial conquest.
Darwinism: Darwinism is the theory of evolution by natural selection associated with Charles Darwin. The theory informs Wells’s portrayals of struggle, adaptation, and human decline.
George Bernard Shaw: George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, critic, and leading member of the Fabian Society. Shaw and Wells shared Fabian politics but clashed over the movement’s direction.
The War of the Worlds radio broadcast: The War of the Worlds radio broadcast was Orson Welles’s 1938 dramatization of H. G. Wells’s novel. The broadcast’s realistic style gave the novel a new, widely discussed afterlife.
The Island of Doctor Moreau: H. G. Wells’s 1896 novel concerns a scientist who surgically transforms animals into humanlike beings. Its experiments test the boundary between humanity and animality.
Social Darwinism: Social Darwinism applies ideas of evolutionary struggle to human societies, often to justify hierarchy or inequality. Wells engaged with evolutionary language while challenging complacent views of social progress.

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