H. G. Wells

H. G. (Herbert George) Wells (1866–1946) was born at Bromley in Kent, England, the son of a professional cricketer turned failed shopkeeper. Wells was apprenticed to a draper and then to a pharmacist before winning a scholarship to the Normal School of Science, where he earned a first in Zoology. Beginning as a writer of textbooks, he was soon publishing articles and fiction in prominent journals, and his early work included such pioneering and influential works of science fiction as The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moreau, and The War of the Worlds. Later books were devoted to realist and comic accounts of lower-middle-class life, among the best known of which are Tono-Bungay, Kipps, and Love and Mr Lewisham. Wells was also the author of many works of nonfiction and, throughout his career, a committed socialist and internationalist.
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