,

H.G. Wells


Born
in Bromley, Kent, England
September 21, 1866

Died
August 13, 1946

Genre

Influences


Herbert George Wells was born to a working class family in Kent, England. Young Wells received a spotty education, interrupted by several illnesses and family difficulties, and became a draper's apprentice as a teenager. The headmaster of Midhurst Grammar School, where he had spent a year, arranged for him to return as an "usher," or student teacher. Wells earned a government scholarship in 1884, to study biology under Thomas Henry Huxley at the Normal School of Science. Wells earned his bachelor of science and doctor of science degrees at the University of London. After marrying his cousin, Isabel, Wells began to supplement his teaching salary with short stories and freelance articles, then books, including The Time Machine (1895), The Isl ...more

Average rating: 3.82 · 1,424,745 ratings · 64,918 reviews · 4,199 distinct worksSimilar authors
The Time Machine

3.89 avg rating — 546,777 ratings — published 1895 — 6549 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The War of the Worlds

3.83 avg rating — 335,326 ratings — published 1898 — 50 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Invisible Man

3.63 avg rating — 208,041 ratings — published 1897 — 1486 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Island of Dr. Moreau

by
3.73 avg rating — 129,670 ratings — published 1896 — 3520 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Time Machine / The Invi...

by
4.10 avg rating — 56,394 ratings — published 1968 — 11 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The First Men in the Moon

by
3.66 avg rating — 17,849 ratings — published 1901 — 1561 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Time Machine / The War ...

4.14 avg rating — 8,728 ratings — published 1961 — 31 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Country of the Blind

3.85 avg rating — 8,104 ratings — published 1904 — 7 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
When the Sleeper Wakes

3.36 avg rating — 5,414 ratings — published 1899 — 2003 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
The Food of the Gods

3.42 avg rating — 5,172 ratings — published 1904 — 7 editions
Rate this book
Clear rating
More books by H.G. Wells…

Related News

  Cross-genre explorers, history nerds, and recovering English majors will want to spend some time with this specially curated collection...
137 likes · 17 comments
Readers with adventurous frontal lobes will be happy in July—this month’s batch of new books features some particularly bold ideas and...
94 likes · 24 comments
Welcome back, once again, to the perennial tradition of summer reading. Thanks to display-technology advances in e-book readers, you can...
317 likes · 82 comments
Quotes by H.G. Wells  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams.”
H.G. Wells

“Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.”
H.G. Wells, The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman

“If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.”
H.G. Wells

Polls

August 2020 Revisit the Shelf Poll

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen pub 1817, 251 pp.
 
  86 votes, 23.6%

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison pub 1952, 581 pp
 
  60 votes, 16.4%

The Color Purple by Alice Walker pub 1982, 295 pp
 
  59 votes, 16.2%

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath pub 1963, 294 p
 
  58 votes, 15.9%

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells pub 1895, 118 pp
 
  38 votes, 10.4%

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood pub. 1996, 468 pgs,
 
  36 votes, 9.9%

Candide by Voltaire pub 1759, 129 pp
 
  28 votes, 7.7%

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author