An Indepth Look at HG Wells
Herbert George Wells was born on September 21, 1866 in Bromley, England, the last of four children. His mother was a house cleaner and his father was a shopkeeper. When he was eight years old, he broke his leg, spent a lot of time reading, and discovered an intense interest in books. At the age of thirteen, his father was injured in an accident so Wells had to leave school and work for a draper. He hated this work and managed to change his employment by working for his uncle and becoming a part-time tutor. This gave him the opportunity to continue his studies in his free time. He finally won a scholarship to The Normal School of Science in London. He worked as a journalist while continuing his education.
In 1891, he married his cousin Isabel. In 1894, he and Isabel were divorced and he then married one of his pupils. In 1895, Wells’ first major work was published- Select Conversations with an Uncle. His next book, The Time Machine, also published in 1895, started Wells on his road to success. This book was followed by The Island of Doctor Moreau, in 1896, The Invisible Man, in 1897, and War of the Worlds, in 1898.[1]
H.G. Wells was one of the fathers of modern science fiction. He made his reputation as a writer through what he called “scientific romances”[2], a comment he made about his own science fiction in the 1930’s. However, he himself said that there were radical differences between his science fiction and that of Jules Verne. Wells said that his own work was “an exercise of the imagination”,[2] as in The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds. In these books he was not suggesting a serious possibility, just trying to imagine what might happen in a given situation.[2]
Jules Verne, on the other hand, based his stories on scientific knowledge. He criticized Wells as basing his books on fantastic, not scientific, assumptions. Wells in some of his books, however, like The Island of Dr. Moreau, did deal with what he called “Fantasies of possibilities”.[2]
Wells also considered himself a philosophical writer and urged that some of his books be taken seriously.
Jules Verne heavily impacted science fiction and the technology of today through his novels. His science fiction novels grew popular and as a result made this genre well-known. More importantly, his novels predicted the moon landing, skyscrapers, submarines, planes, hot air balloons, and more. These works were read by scientists and explorers, like Simon Lake who designed the submarine, and these readers attempted and succeeded to create these inventions and explore to the places, like the moon, that are in his stories.
Harry T. Williams was born on May 19, 1909. When in college, he was encouraged by a professor to study history. This professor's main interest was the Civil War era and had a great effect on Williams. He attended Platteville State Teachers College (later Wisconsin State University at Platteville) where he received a B.Ed in 1931. Williams continued education into graduate school was mainly due to the lack of work during the Great Depression. He went on to earn a Ph.M. in 1932, and Ph.D. in 1937, from the University of Wisconsin (Dawson 431).
John Knowles was born in Fairmont, West Virginia in 1926. Fairmont was a small mining town where Knowles attended public schools. His father, James M. Knowles, was the vice president and purchasing agent of a coal company earned him a comfortable living. His mother, Mary Beatrice Shea Knowles, taught him how to read and write and instilled in him a love for learning. His parents decided he needed to go to a better than Oyster Bay High school, so at the age of fifteen, he left home for Phillips Exeter Academy. This academy was an elite prep school in New Hampshire. This new school was both socially and academically difficult. He pushed on and eventually enrolled into Yale to study English in 1944.
Theodore Samuel Williams was born on August 30th 1918 in San Diego, California. His father, a photographer, named him after the late outspoken president Teddy Roosevelt.His mother was a salvation worker of Mexican descent ("My Turn At Bat"15). His parents, who he later came to resent, were poor and constantly working
Authors Mary Shelly, Nathaniel Hawthorne and John Steinbeck have all created scientists in at least one piece of their work. Mary Shelly's character Frankenstein, from her novel Frankenstein, is a man who is trying to create life from death. Aylmer, the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "The Birthmark," is a scientist who is trying to rid his wife of a birthmark on her almost perfect complexion. In John Steinbeck's "The Snake" the main character Dr. Phillips is attempting to mate starfish until a woman interrupts his work to buy a snake. While written in different times by very different authors who have varying knowledge in science, the three characters Frankenstein, Aylmer, and Dr. Phillips have many similarities and differences.
When he was fifteen years old, his mother died from appendicitis. From fifteen years of age to his college years, he lived in an all-white neighborhood. From 1914-1917, he shifted from many colleges and academic courses of study as well as he changed his cultural identity growing up. He studied physical education, agriculture, and literature at a total of six colleges and universities from Wisconsin to New York. Although he never completed a degree, his educational pursuits laid the foundation for his writing career.
Ida Barnett Wells’ parents were extremely involved in the Republican Party throughout the Reconstruction. Unfortunately, they died in a yellow fever outbreak in the late 1870s as well as one of Ida’s sibling. This catastrophe unfortunately left Ida B. Wells to take care of her other brothers and sisters. However, Ida Wells was once a student at Rust College, where she obtained her early education, unfortunately she stopped going to school at the age of sixteen (Biography.com Editors, 2016).
Science fiction writing began in the early 1800’s as a reaction to the growth in science and technology. The genre is characterized by its intellectual excitement, high adventure, and its making of the fantastic possible. Due to the nature of science fiction, film has become an essential piece to its popularity. Science fiction films have been popular since the earliest silent clips because of the outlandish visuals and creative fictional story lines that capture an audience’s attention. Under the guise of this popular platform writers relay political, social and philosophical messages to their audience. The popular 1931 version of Frankenstein, based on Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, depicts an anti-exploration and anti-intellectual philosophy. In Frankenstein there is criticisms for the immoral behavior that is involved with progresses, the natural tendency for humanity to attempt to be greater than God and the pursuit of knowledge.
The subject of this novel is Science Fiction and there are not many that can even compete with Wells in terms of how superior his word descriptions are. He simply does wonders with the imagination of the reader.
Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Her father, James Wells, was a carpenter and her mother was a cook. After the Civil War her parents became politically active. Her father was known as “race'; man, a term given to African Americans involved in the leadership of the community. He was a local businessman, a mason, and a member of the Board of Trustees of Shaw University. Both parents provided Ida with strong role models. They worked hard and held places of respect in the community as forward-looking people. James and Elizabeth (mother) Wells instilled their daughter a keen sense of duty to God, family, and community.
A few weeks back we had read a short story by H.G. Wells called “The Star.” This story is about the anticipation and consequences of a comet or “star” collision with Earth. On its way through the solar system, the comet also struck other planets. A mathematician after studying the occurrence makes a few predictions about how the encounter with the star will be fatal for Earth and its inhabitants. Some of these predictions were ice in Greenland melting, colder English winters and typhoons in the Pacific. Despite the catastrophes and chaos, Earth manages to survive. Even though a mathematician made the predictions, there is not much of a scientific base behind them.
H.G. Wells was born on September 21, 1866 in Bromley, Kent a suburb of London. His father, Joseph Wells, and his mother, Sarah, were married in 1853 and they
Herbert George Wells had a mind well ahead of those in his time period. Wells often looked towards the future in his work as he became and important piece to the foundation of science fiction.
...ived here before time. These concepts are scary to think of, not in physical way, but psychologically it makes wonder what if? Each one of his writings have some sort of cosmic indifferentism, black magic, or just theories of life before and on earth. Clearly this fascination in science made it an essential part of his writing style.
Science, soon, developed the Big Bang Theory, which states that Earth was created by the attraction of atoms. The nineteenth century society was afraid of science because it contradicted their beliefs, and was afraid that the results of science would lead to the destruction of mankind. Thus, the study of science was limited because of fear of its effects. The fear of the effects of science is expressed in literature. Novels like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Time Machine, and Frankenstein showed the dangers of science and that science would soon lead to the destruction of mankind.