H. G. Wells

Ann Veronica is a New Woman novel by H.G. Wells. Ann Veronica describes the rebellion of Ann Veronica Stanley, "a young lady of nearly two-and-twenty," against her middle-class father's stern patriarchal rule. The novel dramatizes the contemporary problem of the New Woman. It is set in Victorian era London and environs, except for an Alpine excursion. Ann Veronica offers vignettes of the Women's suffrage movement in Great Britain and features a chapter...

The mysterious Griffin arrives at a picturesque English inn during a snowstorm, swaddled in bandages which cover his face and with his eyes hidden behind dark glasses. His odd get-up and irascible behavior intrigue the locals, who believe him to be the victim of an accident. However, the true reason for Griffin's outfit is far stranger: underneath those clothes, he is completely invisible. As the cause of Griffin's state of transparency is revealed,...

"As I sit down to write here amidst the shadows of vine-leaves under the blue sky of southern Italy, it comes to me with a certain quality of astonishment that my participation in these amazing adventures of Mr. Cavor was, after all, the outcome of the purest accident. It might have been any one. I fell into these things at a time when I thought myself removed from the slightest possibility of disturbing experiences. I had gone to Lympne because I...

"The Time Machine" relates the story of The Time Traveller, a Victorian inventor who creates a machine that allows him to travel to any time period. He chooses to rocket forward into the unknown world of the future, landing in the year 802,701 where he encounters the humanoids descendants of Earth, the seemingly friendly and benign Eloi and the subterranean and primitive Morlocks. The Time Traveller rescues and befriends a young Eloi girl named Weena...

Englishman Edward Prendick finds himself shipwrecked on the open ocean. When a passing ship takes him aboard and revives him, things are starting to look less gloomy for the young scientist. Yet little does he know things about to get much worse. He is taken to an abandoned island occupied only by Dr. Moreau, a disgraced English scientist for his unethical treatment of live creatures. Prendick finds that the Doctor has been up to old habits, using...

The World Set Free is a perfect example of H. G. Wells's gift for prophecy. Written on the eve of World War I, the novel predicts a major world war (although in the story the war doesn't start until 1956). The novel also examines the advent of atomic power, both as a bomb and a source of energy.

Having coined the phrase "the war that will end war," H. G. Wells was disillusioned by the World War I peace settlement. Convinced that humanity needed to awaken to the instability of the world order and remember lessons from the past, the author of numerous science fiction classics set out to write about history. Wells hoped to remind mankind of its common past, provide it with a basis for international patriotism, and guide it to renounce war. The...

Dr. Moreau is brilliant geneticist on the brink of superseding evolution. When a U.N. diplomat visits the island laboratory he discovers experiments turning animal life forms into human-like beasts. The beasts revolt, threatening not only the island but ultimately all mankind.

In the Invisible man, a scientist makes himself invisible, but loses control of the experiment. In the Island of Dr. Moreau, the survivor of a shipwreck finds himself washed ashore on an island with some very peculiar inhabitants.

"H. G. Wells's passionate and influential manifesto never before available in the United States was first published in England in 1940 in response to World War II. The progressive ideas Wells set out were instrumental in the creation of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the UK's Human Rights Act. In the face of a global miscarriage of justice, The Rights of Man made a clear statement of mankind's...