Herbert George Wells (Herbert George Wells)

Born in Bromley, Kent, the son of a shopkeeper. At age 14, was forced to because of lack of money to leave school, but four years later managed to get scholarships to study at the Normal School of Science in South Kensington, where he taught Thomas Huxley. Another grant allowed Wells to finish in 1890, Department of Biology, University of London. Around the same time he first took up the pen and the age of thirty had already published his famous science-fiction novel "The Time Machine" (1895), "Invisible Man" (1897) and "War of the Worlds" (1898). From fiction Wells turned to the so-called "domestic novel". This appeal was in no small measure due to the fact that in 1903 he joined the Fabian Society, whose ideal was the gradual "escalation of" capitalism to socialism. Wells remained a member of the society until 1908, many of his works of those years - for example, the novels "Kipps" (1905) or "Tono-Benge (1908) - are permeated with" the spirit of Fabian ". In 1922, Wells put his candidacy to the parliament, but failed to defeat rivals in the constituency, two years later, having had time to visit Russia and meet with Lenin, he went to France, where he lived until 1933. In 1934 he returned to England in the same year he was elected president of International PEN, and in this position he remained until his death. According to many critics, the best books were written by Wells in the period from 1894 to 1901. That the above-mentioned science-fiction novels, as well as "The Island of Dr. Moreau" (1896), "Love and Mr. Lyuishem" (1900), "First Men in the Moon" (1901), collections of short stories and novels. None of the later books Wells can not be compared with these early works. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say, after the critic Bernard Bergonzi, that if Wells, like Stephen Crane, died in 1900, world literature would be left vnaklade - the best he had already written.