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Herbert George
Wells was born in Bromley (U.K.) on the 21st of September, 1866. He
received his basic education at a local school and, in 1883, became a
pupil-teacher at Midhurst Grammar School. While at Midhurst, Wells won
a scholarship to the School of Science where he founded and edited the
Science School's Journal while he was a student there. But Herbert became
disenchanted with the academic life during his second year of study and
left the school in 1887 without obtaining a degree.
He returned to teaching and writing and in 1891 published his major essay
on science, The Rediscovery of the Unique, in The Fortnightly
Review. The Time Machine, published in 1995, was Herbert's
first novel and the foundation of a long line of science-fiction classics.
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As a an undergraduate student at the School of Science, H.G. Wells attended
chemistry lectures during the day and read history at night. Throughout his
life he maintained a fascination with both science and history.
He also wrote many non-fiction books about politics, technology and the
future. This included Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and
Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought (1901), The Discovery
of the Future (1902), Mankind in the Making (1903) and An Outline
of History which has been periodically revised over the years with a half
dozen succeeding editions (I own both the 4-volume edition of 1923 and the
single-volume edition of 1971).
The Outline was widely praised and an abridged version, A Short
History of the World, appeared in 1922 and sold in large numbers. Wells
earned a reputation as one of the world's most important political thinkers
and during the 1920s and 30s he was in great demand as a contributor to
newspapers and journals. In his books and articles H. G. Wells argued that
society had reached the stage where it needed world government and strongly
supported the League of Nations.
Wells was appalled by the outbreak of the Second World War and wrote
extensively about the need to make sure that we used the conflict to establish
a new, rational world order. Herbert George Wells died on 13th August, 1946,
while working on a project that dealt with the dangers of nuclear war.
The Time Machine (1895) is the story of
a nineteenth-century scientist who builds a time machine and uses the machine
to travel into the distant future. There he finds two separate species of
intelligent beings inhabiting the southern regions of Great Britain. It's a
tale of danger and mystery in a strange world.
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The Time Machine
by H.G. Wells |
Size: 99 KB |
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Video Available
After scoring popular hits with When Worlds Collide and
The War of the Worlds, special-effects pioneer
George Pal returned to the visionary
fiction of H.G. Wells to produce and direct this science-fiction classic in
1960. Wells' imaginative tale of time travel was published in 1895 and the
movie is set in approximately the same period with Rod Taylor as a scientist
whose magnificent time machine allows him to leap backward and forward through
history.
As Taylor tests his daring invention, Oscar-winning special effects
show us what the scientist sees: a cavalcade of sights and sounds as he races
through time at varying speeds, from lava flows of ancient earth to the rise
and fall of a towering future metropolis.
The video is available at
Amazon.
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A Dream of Armageddon
This is an anthology of seven short stories by H.G. Wells. The stories in this
collection are
- A Dream of Armageddon (1901)
- This is like A Farewell to Arms as told by Franz Kafka to (and
reported by) Arthur Conan Doyle. The story involves a famous and powerful
man who turns his back on his career for the sake of a scandalous love affair.
(I don't know whether this predates Mrs. Simpson's involvement with the
British Crown; but that's just one of the interesting aspects of this story.)
- Aepyornis Island (1894)
- The story of a biological specimen collector who finds a clutch of very
well preserved eggs of a prehistoric flightless bird.
- Filmer (1901)
- The story of the reluctant inventor of heavier-than-air flight. (Written
around the same time as the occurrence of the first glider experiments of the
Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk)
- Jimmy Goggles the God (1898)
- An adventure tale involving sunken treasure and a masquerade.
- Miss Winchelsea's Heart (1898)
- A tale of lost love and a foolish choice.
- Mr. Brisher's Treasure (1899)
- A tale of romance and buried treasure, with a comical twist.
- The Lord of the Dynamos (1894)
- Two men work together to supply electric current to London's electric
railways, but they don't share the same view of their purpose.
A Dream of Armageddon
by H.G. Wells |
Size: 122 KB |
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And more
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896)
The Island of Dr. Moreau is the tale of a shipwrecked traveler who
finds himself on an island ruled by a biological researcher who is involved
in surgical experiments to investigate the morphological bases of behaviour.
There have been several video versions of The Island, the
most recent being the version that was screened in
1996, that starred Marlon Brando and David Thewlis.
My favorite is
The Island of Lost Souls, starring Charles
Laughton and Bela Lugosi. Lost Souls was first screened in 1933.
The Island of Dr. Moreau
by H.G. Wells |
Size: 134 KB |
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The Invisible Man (1897)
The Invisible Man is the story of a scientist who discovers a way to
make himself invisible, but puts his secret to selfish uses that bring
him into conflict with the constabulary.
The Invisible Man
by H.G. Wells |
Size: 153 KB |
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The War of the Worlds (1898)
Martians invade the earth and wander the countryside around London, dealing
death and destruction with the horrible heat-ray from their three-legged
war machines.
The best known video version, starring Gene Barry, was made in 1953 and won
an oscar for best special effects that year. The film is in color and you
can get it at
Amazon.
The War of the Worlds
by H.G. Wells |
Size: 187 KB |
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First Men in the Moon (1901)
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First Men in the Moon is Herbert's tale of two men who travel to
the moon in an anti-gravity sphere to discover a strange civilization
living inside of the moon.
Video Available
The most widely known cinematic treatment of this story is the version
that was made in 1964 featuring special effects by Ray Harryhausen.
The video is available at
Amazon. Other cinematic treatments have been created,
dating back to the era of silent film and forward to, most recently, a
version released in 1999, featuring William Shatner
as the Grand Lunar and Leonard Nimoy as the scientist William Cavor.
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First Men in the Moon
by H.G. Wells |
Size: 210 KB |
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