The War of the Worlds (Author Biography)

Author Biography

Herbert George Wells was born on September 21, 1866, in Bromley, Kent, in England. His father was a shopkeeper and a professional cricket player with the Bromley team; his mother was a part-time housekeeper. When Wells was seven, he was injured while playing with a friend of his father. He broke a bone in his leg and was forced to spend two months in bed. He looked back on this as a lucky turn of events, as it was then that he developed the habit of reading.

Because his family did not have much money, Wells became an apprentice to a draper at age thirteen, working twelve-hour days. He was determined to become educated, and earned a scholarship to Midhurst Grammar School by agreeing to function as a student teacher. He entered the Normal School of Science at South Kensington when he was eighteen and studied under famed biologist T. H. Huxley. After college, he took a position teaching, but a bout with tuberculosis forced him to become bedridden again. It was then, while reading constantly, that he decided that he did not want to be not a teacher but a writer.

In 1891, while making money by grading lessons for the University Correspondence College at Cambridge, Wells published several short stories in Science Schools Journal. These stories were later collected to make his first novel, The Time Machine (1895). Next followed a series of science fiction classics that are read to this day and often adapted to films, including The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). The widespread popularity of these books, all published when the author was barely thirty, gave him an income that would make him financially comfortable for the rest of his life.

As he aged, Wells's books concentrated more and more on scientific and philosophical matters. He became a leading voice in the Fabian society, which was a socialist movement. His first marriage ended in divorce, and his second, to one of his students, was an "open" marriage: his wife knew about his many affairs, including at least one that resulted in a child, and raised no objection, though his lifestyle hurt his public image. After World War I (1914 – 1918) he wrote books about social order, such as The Outline of History (1920) (one of his most famous works) and The Common Sense of World Peace (1929). He lived to the age of seventy nine, having spent much of his life as one of the world's most famous authors. Wells died on August 13, 1946 after a prolonged illness.