The Young H. G. Wells : Changing the World

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From acclaimed literary biographer Claire Tomalin, a complex and fascinating exploration of the early life of the influential writer and public figure H. G. Wells How did the first forty years of H. G. Wells's life shape the father of science fiction? From his impoverished childhood in a working-class English family and determination to educate himself at any cost to his complicated marriages, love affair with socialism, and the serious ill health that dominated his twenties and thirties, H. G. Wells's extraordinary early life would set him on a path to become one of the world's most influential writers. The sudden success of The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds transformed his life and catapulted him to international fame; he became the writer who most inspired Orwell and countless others and predicted men walking on the moon seventy years before it happened. In this remarkable, empathetic biography, Claire Tomalin paints a... Illustrations Preface 1. Two Accidents 2. “What else can you do?” 3. Uppark 4. “A bright run of luck” 5. Blood 6. “For a young man to marry . . .” 7. More Blood 8. The Time Machine 9. “Uncommonly cheerful and hopeful” 10. A House by the Sea 11. Fabian Friends 12. Joining the Club 13. Pressure 14. America in 1906 15. Webb and Wells 16. Amberissima 17. Heroines 18. Tono-Bungay 19. Friends and Enemies 20. “I warmed both hands before the fire of Life” Photographs Bibliography Books by Wells 1893–1911 Notes Acknowledgments Index