Herbert George Wells : - Born in 21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946 known as H. G. Wells was a prolific English writer in many genres, including the novel, history, politics, and social commentary, and textbooks and rules for war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels, and is called the father of science fiction, along with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback. His most notable science fiction works include The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times.
Wells's earliest specialized training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a specifically and fundamentally Darwinian context. He was also from an early date an outspoken socialist, often (but not always, as at the beginning of the First World War) sympathising with pacifist views. His later works became increasingly political and didactic, and he wrote little science fiction, while he sometimes indicated on official documents that his profession was that of journalist. Novels like Kipps and The History of Mr Polly, which describe lower-middle-class life, led to the suggestion, when they were published, that he was a worthy successor to Charles Dickens, but Wells described a range of social strata and even attempted, in Tono-Bungay (1909), a diagnosis of English society as a whole. A diabetic, in 1934 Wells co-founded the charity The Diabetic Association (known today as Diabetes UK).
Best Novels of H.G Wells : -
The Time Machine : - is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells, published in 1895. Wells is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposely and selectively forwards or backwards in time. The term "time machine", coined by Wells, is now almost universally used to refer to such a vehicle.
The Time Machine has since been adapted into three feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions, and a large number of comic book adaptations. It has also indirectly inspired many more works of fiction in many media.
Plot introduction : - The book's protagonist is an English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey, in Victorian England, and identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller. The narrator recounts the Traveller's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension, and his demonstration of a tabletop model machine for travelling through it. He reveals that he has built a machine capable of carrying a person through time, and returns at dinner the following week to recount a remarkable tale, becoming the new narrator.
In the new narrative, the Time Traveller tests his device with a journey that takes him to A.D. 802,701, where he meets the Eloi, a society of small, elegant, childlike adults. They live in small communities within large and futuristic yet slowly deteriorating buildings, doing no work and having a frugivorous diet. His efforts to communicate with them are hampered by their lack of curiosity or discipline, and he speculates that they are a peaceful, communist society, the result of humanity conquering nature with technology, and subsequently evolving to adapt to an environment in which strength and intellect are no longer advantageous to survival.
The Island of Doctor Moreau : - is an 1896 science fiction novel by H. G. Wells, who called it "an exercise in youthful blasphemy". The text of the novel is the narration of Edward Prendick, a shipwrecked man rescued by a passing boat who is left on the island home of Doctor Moreau, who creates human-like hybrid beings from animals via vivisection. The novel deals with a number of philosophical themes, including pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity, and human interference with nature.
At the time of the novel's publication in 1896, there was growing discussion in Europe regarding degeneration and animal vivisection. Several interest groups were formed to oppose vivisection, the two largest being the National Anti-Vivisection Society in 1875 and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection in 1898.
Plot Introduction : - The Island of Doctor Moreau is the account of Edward Prendick, a shipwrecked Englishman with a scientific education. A passing ship takes him aboard, and a man named Montgomery revives him. Prendick also meets a grotesque bestial native named M'ling, who appears to be Montgomery's manservant. The ship is transporting a number of animals which belong to Montgomery. As they approach the island, Montgomery's destination, the captain demands Prendick leave the ship with Montgomery. Montgomery explains that he will not be able to host Prendick on the island. Despite this, the captain leaves Prendick in a dinghy and sails away. Seeing that the captain has abandoned Prendick, Montgomery takes pity and rescues him. As ships rarely pass the island, Prendick will be housed in an outer room of an enclosed compound.
The island belongs to Dr. Moreau. Prendick remembers that he has heard of Moreau, formerly an eminent physiologist in London whose gruesome experiments in vivisection had been publicly exposed.
The next day, Moreau begins working on a puma. Prendick gathers that Moreau is performing a painful experiment on the animal, and its anguished cries drive Prendick out into the jungle. While he wanders, he comes upon a group of people who seem human but have an unmistakable resemblance to swine. As he walks back to the enclosure, he suddenly realises he is being followed by a figure in the jungle. He panics and flees, and the figure gives chase. As his pursuer bears down on him, Prendick manages to stun him with a stone and observes the pursuer is a monstrous hybrid of animal and man. When Prendrick returns to the enclosure and questions Montgomery, Montgomery refuses to be open with him. After failing to get an explanation, Prendick finally gives in and takes a sleeping draught.
He leaves London and lives in near-solitude in the countryside, devoting himself to chemistry as well as astronomy, in the studies of which he finds some peace.
The Invisible Man : - is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells. Originally serialized in Pearson's Weekly in 1897, it was published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man of the title is Griffin, a scientist who has devoted himself to research into optics and invents a way to change a body's refractive index to that of air so that it neither absorbs nor reflects light and thus becomes invisible. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but fails in his attempt to reverse it.
While its predecessors, The Time Machine and The Island of Doctor Moreau, were written using first-person narrators, Wells adopts a third-person objective point of view in The Invisible Man.
Plot Introduction : - A mysterious man, Griffin, arrives at the local inn of the English village of Iping, West Sussex, during a snowstorm. The stranger wears a long-sleeved, thick coat and gloves; his face is hidden entirely by bandages except for a fake pink nose; and he wears a wide-brimmed hat. He is excessively reclusive, irascible, and unfriendly. He demands to be left alone and spends most of his time in his rooms working with a set of chemicals and laboratory apparatus, only venturing out at night. While Griffin is staying at the inn, hundreds of strange glass bottles (that he calls his luggage) arrive. Many local townspeople believe this to be very strange. He becomes the talk of the village.
Meanwhile, a mysterious burglary occurs in the village. Griffin has run out of money and is trying to find a way to pay for his board and lodging. When his landlady demands that he pay his bill and quit the premises, he reveals part of his invisibility to her in a fit of pique. An attempt to apprehend the stranger is frustrated when he undresses to take advantage of his invisibility, fights off his would-be captors, and flees to the downs.
There Griffin coerces a tramp, Thomas Marvel, into becoming his assistant. With Marvel, he returns to the village to recover three notebooks that contain records of his experiments. When Marvel attempts to betray the Invisible Man to the police, Griffin chases him to the seaside town of Port Burdock, threatening to kill him. Marvel escapes to a local inn and is saved by the people at the inn, but Griffin escapes. Marvel later goes to the police and tells them of this "invisible man," then requests to be locked up in a high-security jail.
In the final chapter, it is revealed that Marvel has secretly kept Griffin's notes but is completely incapable of understanding them.
The War of the Worlds : - is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells first serialised in 1897 in the UK by Pearson's Magazine and in the US by Cosmopolitan magazine. The novel's first appearance in hardcover was in 1898 from publisher William Heinemann of London. Written between 1895 and 1897, it is one of the earliest stories that detail a conflict between mankind and an extraterrestrial race. The novel is the first-person narrative of both an
The plot has been related to invasion literature of the time. The novel has been variously interpreted as a commentary on evolutionary theory, British imperialism, and generally Victorian superstitions, fears and prejudices. At the time of publication, it was classified as a scientific romance, like Wells' earlier novel The Time Machine. The War of the Worlds has been both popular (having never been out of print) and influential, spawning half a dozen feature films, radio dramas, a record album, various comic book adaptations, a television series, and sequels or parallel stories by other authors. It has even influenced the work of scientists, notably Robert Goddard, who (inspired by the book) invented both the liquid fueled rocket and multistage rocket, which resulted in the Apollo 11 moon landing 71 years later.
Plot Introduction : - the plot of War of the Worlds can be a little bumpy. Wells' narrator jumps from talking about the whole world, to talking about himself, to talking about what his brother's been up to. Don't say we didn't warn you.
The book starts with the narrator mentioning that the people of Earth never expected Martians to attack (understandable). Then Martian cylinders come crashing down into the English countryside. (Check out this map we made to see where the cylinders fall.) The cylinders open, revealing Martians that don't move so well – that is, until they build their tank-like tripods and go striding around the countryside on those, burning everything in sight with their Heat-Rays (patent pending).
The narrator runs and hides. He gets his wife away from the Martians… but then goes back towards the Martians. Why would he do that? Well, because a) he has to return the cart-and-horse he used to get out of town and b) he wants to see the British army crush the Martians. Also, possibly because c) he's not so smart.
At this point, the British army is fighting the Martians and losing badly: the British have managed to destroy one Martian tripod, while the Martians have been going to town on the British. When the narrator realizes how deadly the Martians are, he runs and hides in his house, where he meets an artilleryman. They travel together a little, but the narrator loses track of the artilleryman during another Martian attack.
After escaping the Martians (again), the narrator meets a curate. The narrator and the curate travel together, even though the narrator starts to be bothered by the guy. The Martians also start using their second major weapon, the Black Smoke (also patent pending).
Meanwhile, the narrator's brother is in London, so we get to hear all about how things went over there too. At first, people in London worried about the Martians because they didn't realize how powerful the Martians were. Then, later, the Londoners hear that the Martians are advancing on the city, so they all evacuates. On his way out, the brother meets up with two women, Mrs. and Miss Elphinstone, and the three of them escape together. They reach the coast and get a spot on a boat that's going to Ostend. While their boat is shipping out, the Martians attack, but the English navy destroys two of the Martians' tripods.
The narrator and the curate are trapped in a house for a few days because there are Martians camped outside the house. The two men grow to hate each other. The narrator observes the Martians and discovers a lot about them. For example, the Martians survive off of blood (hence, the delight of going after humans). Eventually, the Martians catch the curate, who has been knocked out by the narrator.
Several days later, after the Martians leave the general area, the narrator comes out of his hole in the ground. He discovers that the world is stranger than he left it – it's largely destroyed and covered in a red Martian weed.
The narrator runs into the artilleryman, who tells the narrator all about his plan for a new lifestyle: living underground, playing cricket, and killing Martians occasionally. The narrator is very impressed by this plan and wants to subscribe to the artilleryman's newsletter. However, while the artilleryman talks the talk, he doesn't walk the walk, so the narrator leaves him. No cricket for them.
The narrator makes his way to London, which he discovers is a mess. (Probably soccer hooligans.) He eventually discovers that the Martians are all dead – they died from some bacteria or disease that humans are immune to. He finds his wife again and thinks about how the Martian invasion has made people rethink some of the things they thought they knew.
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