H. G. Wells

John Batchelor

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511553646

H. G. Wells wrote almost a hundred books, yet he is generally remembered for only a handful of them. He is known above all as a writer who heralded the future, yet throughout his life he clung to fixed attitudes from the Victorian past. He began his career as a draper's apprentice; by the age of forty-five he had secured an international reputation as the author of The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, Kipps and Tono Bungay; he went on to establish himself as an influential educator, polemicist and sage. In this book John Batchelor offers a readable introduction to Wells's huge and varied output as a writer and thinker. He guides the reader through the whole oeuvre, and argues persuasively that at his best Wells was a great artist: a man with a remarkable, restless imagination (not limited, as many critics have implied, merely to his early romances) and with a coherent and responsible theory of fiction.

- Aa Reduce text
- Aa Enlarge text

View selected items
Save to my bookmarks
Export citations
Download PDF (zip)
Save to Kindle
Save to Dropbox
Save to Google Drive
Save content to
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to .

To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Please be advised that item(s) you selected are not available.
You are about to save
Your Kindle email address

Please provide your Kindle email.

@free.kindle.com @kindle.com (service fees apply)

By using this service, you agree that you will only keep content for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Total number of HTML views: 0

Total number of PDF views: 0 *

Loading metrics...

Total views: 0 *

Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

H. G. Wells

This Book has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref.

Book description

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-vi

Contents
pp vii-viii

Preface and acknowledgements
pp ix-x

List of abbreviations
pp xi-xii

1 - The romances of the 1890s: The Time Machine, The Island of Dr Moreau, The War of the World
pp 1-31

2 - The Edwardian achievement, I: Love and Mr Lewisham, Kipps, The First Men in the Moon, The War in the Air
pp 32-61

3 - The Edwardian achievement, II: Tono-Bungay, Ann Veronica, The History of Mr Polly
pp 62-93

4 - The decade of struggle: Mr Britling Sees it Through, Boon, ‘prig’ novels and discussion novels
pp 94-122

5 - Wells in the modern world: Mr Blettsworthy on Rampole Island, The Bulpington of Blup, The Croquet Player, dualism and education
pp 123-154

Conclusion
pp 155-160

Notes
pp 161-163

Chronology
pp 164-171

Index
pp 172-176

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Book summary page views

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

Accessibility Information

H. G. Wells

Book description

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Save Search

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Book summary page views

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

Accessibility Information