H.G. Wells
A Thesis Driven Paper About How H.G. Wells Was a Utopian, and Idealistic Yet Pessimistic In His Prophetic Works of Literature
Dana Ulbing
World Lit, 6B
Mr. Reigles
Author Report
10-29-01
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was born on September 21, 1866 to an unsuccessful tradesman and a housekeeper in Bromley, Kent, a suburb of London. His father was a shopkeeper and a professional cricketer. His mother was a housekeeper at the nearby estate of Uppark. Wells received a basic education at a local school. At the age of seven, Wells was bedridden with a broken leg. During this time he acquired an interest in literature. When he was young he studied books secretly in the library, which helped him to develop a love for literature at an early age. When his father?s business failed he became an apprentice to a draper like his brothers had before him. This helped his family to keep up their social standard. He spent these years between 1880 and 1883 in Windsor and Southsea. He disliked the drapery work. In 1883 Wells became a pupil-teacher at Midhurst Grammar School. While at Midhurst he was offered a scholarship to the Royal College of Science in London. There he studied biology under T.H. Huxley. Wells found Huxley an inspiring teacher and as a result developed a strong interest in social and biological evolution. He also studied zoology there. Since Wells was disappointed with the teaching he received in his second year, in 1887 he left the Royal College without a degree. He kept up his studies at the London University, which he had been attending at the same time. Wells taught in private schools for four years, and finally got his Bachelor of Science in 1890. He wrote a biology textbook and contributed short stories to several magazines. In 1891, he married his cousin Isabel and settled in London. The year 1893 marked a turning point in Wells?s life when he decided to become a full-time writer. Two years later he left Isabel for one of his brightest students, Amy Catherine. He married her in 1895. A socialist, Wells joined the Fabian Society in 1903. He had to leave the group after an unsuccessful war of wit with George Bernard Shaw. After this failed battle of intelligence an event in American history greatly consumed Wells?s thinking. The First World War affected Wells drastically. During this time, he was involved in a love affair with a young journalist, Rebecca West, who was 26 years younger than he. Their son Anthony West would later write about their difficult relationship in his own book. Wells tried being participating in another group, this time one that dealt with the current happenings in the world. In 1917 Wells was a member of Research Committee for the League of Nations. In his books and articles he argued that society had reached the stage where it needed world government and strongly supported the League of Nations. He was a labour candidate for Parliament in the early 1920s. In the year 1934 Wells had discussions with both Stalin and Roosevelt, trying to recruit them to his world-saving schemes. From 1934 to 1946 he was the International president of PEN. During these years one of Wells?s mistresses, Moura Budberg, turned out to have been a Soviet agent for years. Wells?s last book he wrote was Mind At The End Of Its Tether, in 1945. Wells died in his sleep, in London on August 13th, 1946, at the age of 80. This was while he was working on a project that dealt with the dangers of nuclear war. H.G. Wells?s life affected his writing and views on society and the way the world was advancing.
H.G. Wells wrote over a hundred books, about fifty of them were novels. Wells?s works fall into four broad and overlapping categories. Wells early works can be described simply as science fiction and science fantasies. These works in include The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The War of the Worlds. During this time his works were two-fold. Not only did they gain him public popularity, but also critical attention, both good and bad. Wells?s reputation rested on this initial works, which would be turned into radio, television, and movie stories (Hall 522). Dissatisfied with his literary work, Wells moved into the novel genre (Beasley 2). Wells?s novels are among the classics of science-fiction (H(erbert) G(eorge) Wells 1). After attaining attention Wells then wrote humorous Dickensian novels. These comedic novels included Kipps and The History of Mr. Polly. These stories were different from others in the fact that they contained lower middle-class characters living at odds with their astringent culture. His previous works had a more serious tone. This time in his writing marked the end of Wells?s literary ascension. His works had taken on an obscure nature. Examples of these works are Joan and Peter and The World of William Clissold, these pieces examine social problems in a didactic way that entice the ridicule of major critics of the day. Wells next works were social novels. An example of these novels is Tono-Bungay. These works showed his ambitious treatment of societal and political decay. They serve as a bridge between his character and expository fiction. From the turn of the century until his death, Wells wrote sociopolitical criticism and prognostications. The work The War That Will End War gave the world a cynical catch phrase for stubborn innocence in the face of human corruptness. This was a criticism of much of Wells?s social fiction and nonfiction. For all his concern over the future of the human race, critics remain uncertain as to whether Wells actually believed that humanity could be improved. There is evidence that, as the Time Traveller of his first major work suggests, Wells believed that even if life is indeed a meaningless, dualistic struggle, ?it remains for us to live as though it were not so.? Wells socialism is combined with a belief in the gradual perfection of humanity through evolution and scientific innovation, which is expressed in the prognostications and the serious fiction. Wells lectured on the betterment of society through education, in which scientific innovation played a key role (Hall 522).
World War I and its results upset Wells?s optimistic view of humankind and coming Utopia. By 1914, through works like A Modern Utopia, Wells was established in the public mind as a leading supporter of socialism, world government, free thought, and free love (Hall 485). This composition expressed a desire for a society that was run and organized by humanist and well- educated people. Wells, who was extremely critical of the role that privilege and hereditary factors and capitalist society and in his utopia, people gain power as a result of their intelligence and training (H. G. Wells 1). Wells has said, ?Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe?(Brian 2).
The war and its aftermath of widespread disillusionment upset his optimistic vision of humankind. During the war Wells turned temporarily to belief in God (Hall 485). Wells, who was a Darwinist, did not reject the evolutionary theory but attacked optimists and warned that human progress is not inevitable (H(erbert) G(eorge) Wells 2). Wells?s The Outline of History was written to further the cause of world peace by illustrating commonality of the world?s people (Hall 485). The main theme of this piece was that the world would be saved by education and not by revolution (H. G. Wells 2). This work was the subject of much critical discussion because it sparked one of the most celebrated literary debates of the 1920s. This debate was between Wells and his longtime antagonist, the Catholic polemicist Hilaire Belloc. He objected to Wells naturalistic, Darwinian view of world history. Belloc attacked the Outline as a simpleminded, nonscientific, anti-Catholic document. A war of mutual denial was fought by both writers in pages of several books and essays. His response to this was his work The Outline History. His own literary style of writing was basically journalistic and was acquired while serving under editor Frank Harris as literary critic at The Saturday Review.
Through the 1920s and the 1930s Wells?s works became progressively less optimistic about the future of humanity and increasingly bitter. This is evident in The Holy Terror (Hall 485). Along with George Orwell?s Nineteen-Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley?s Brave New World, which was a pessimistic answer to scientific optimism, Wells?s novels are among the classical works of scientific-fiction, but his romantic and enthusiastic conception of technology later turned more doubtful. His bitter side is seen early in the novel Boon, which was a parody of Henry James (Beasley 1).
Wells influenced many young students in a big way. Jennie Lee met Wells at a dinner party in 1929, she said that he was one of the bright guiding stars of her youth. Wells converted Margaret Cole to socialism through his works (H. G. Wells 3-4). Wells used his wealth and respect to write and influence people to change society (Brian 1). In his novel The Shape of Things to Come published in 1933, Wells describes a world that had been devastated by decades of war and was now being rebuilt by the use of humanistic technology (H. G. Wells 2). The start of World War II increased Wells hopelessness about the future. Wells?s scientific romances have influenced the work of several generations of science fiction writers (Hall 485). In film versions the character of Dr. Moreau has inspired such as actors as Charles Laughton, Burt Lancaster, and Marlon Brando. Another of Wells?s famous books, The Time Machine, was made into a movie and will be released in the near future. In his novels Wells used two wives, Amber Reeves, Rebecca West, Odette Keun and all the passing mistresses as models for his characters. ?I was never a great amorist,? Wells wrote in Experiment in Autobiography ?though I have loved several people very deeply.? Rebecca West became a famous author and married a wealthy banker, Henry Andrews, who had business interests in Germany. Elizabeth von Arnim dismissed Wells, and Moura Budberg, Maxim Gorky?s former mistress, refused to marry him or be faithful (H(erbert) G(eroge) Wells 2-3). The basic principles of the time machine contained materials regarding time as the fourth dimensions-years later Albert Einstein published his theory of the fourth dimensional continuum of space-time (Beasley 1). In Wells early scientific writings Wells predicted the invention of modern weapons such as the tank and the atomic bomb (H. G. Wells 2). In spite of the pessimism that pervades many of his last works, Wells is regarded as one of the most prominent champions of the early twentieth-century spirit of British liberal optimism (Hall 486). Wells?s last book, Mind at the End of Its Tether, bleakly foretells the end of all things (Hall 522). This piece expressed pessimism about mankind?s future prospects (Beasley 3). Today the H. G. Wells Society is an association composed of persons interested in Wells?s life and works, who are anxious to encourage a wider interest in his writings and ideas. The object of the Society is ?to promote and encourage universally active interest in, and appreciation of, the life, work, and the thought of Herbert George Wells (James).
The story, War of the Worlds, appeared at a time when Percival Lowell?s ?observations? of ?canals? on Mars arose speculations that there could be life on the Red planet (Beasley 2). This story was serialized in the Cosmopolitan magazine in the United States in1897 (H. G. Wells 1). His book was performed as a radio drama Mercury Theatre?s broadcast on Halloween night in 1938. Orson Welles?s broadcast caused a panic in the Eastern United States. In Newark, New Jersey, all the occupants of a block of flats left their homes with wet towels around their heads, and in Harlem a congregation fell to its knees. Wells himself was not amused with the radio play. Later Orson Welles attempted to claim authorship for the script, but Howard Koch wrote it. Arthur C. Clarke wrote, ?Those who have not read The War of the Worlds may be surprised to find that, like much of Wells?s writing, it is full of poetry and contains passages that catch the throat. Wells tried to pretend that he was not an artist and stated ?there will come a time for every work of art when it will have served its purpose and be bereft of its last rag of significance.? This has not yet happened for the best of Wells?s science fiction, though it has done so for all but a few of his realistic and political novels.? (H(erbert) G(eorge) Wells 4).
H. G. Wells was a utopian, who was idealistic yet pessimistic in his prophetic works of literature. He did what was right not what was accepted. Society never got it while he was writing it, but after that we knew he was saying ?Shape up or suffer.? (Brian 1). Wells is best known today as the father of modern science fiction, and as a utopian idealist who correctly foretold an era of chemical warfare, atomic weaponry, and world wars (Hall 522, 485).
Works Cited
Beasley, Chris. H.G. Wells. www.onlineliterature.com/wellshg/. 2000.
Brian, Mrs.Sunda?s Class. H.G. Wells.
www.kyrene.k12.az.us/scholls/brisas/sunda/great.2brian.htm.
Hall, Sharon K. Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Volume 6 and 12. Gale Research
Company Book Tower; Detroit, Michigan, 1982.
H(erbert) G(eorge) Wells (1866-1946). www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hgwell.htm. 2000.
H.G. Wells. www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jwells.htm.
James, Edward. The H.G. Wells Society: Statement of Objects.
www.rdg.ac.uk/~lhsjamse/wells/wells.htm.
