H. G. Wells wrote The War of the Worlds in 1898, when there was much speculation about life on the planet Mars. The book is considered to be one of the first science fiction novels. In the story, an English gentleman narrates the events of a violent and fast paced Martian invasion.

The Invisible Man is a science ction novella by H. G. Wells. Originally serialized in Pearson's Weekly in 1897, it was published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man of the title is Griffin, a scientist who has devoted himself to research into optics and invents a way to change a body's refractive index to that of air so that it neither absorbs nor re ects light and thus becomes invisible. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but fails in his attempt to reverse it. While its predecessors, The Time Machine and The Island of Doctor Moreau, were written using rst-person...

The Wheels of Chance was written at the height of the cycling craze (1890-1905), when practical, comfortable bicycles rst became widely and cheaply available and before the rise of the automobile (see History of the bicycle). The advent of the bicycle stirred sudden and profound changes in the social life of England. Even the working class could travel substantial distances, quickly and cheaply, and the very idea of travelling for pleasure became a possibility for thousands of people for the rst time. This new freedom affected many. It began to weaken the rigid English class structure and it...

A Modern Utopia has been called "not so much a modern as a postmodern utopia." The novel is best known for its notion that a voluntary order of nobility known as the Samurai could effectively rule a "kinetic and not static" world state so as to solve "the problem of combining progress with political stability." A Modern Utopia is presented as a tale told by a sketchily described character known only as the Owner of the Voice. Interspersed in the narrative are discursive remarks on various matters, creating what Wells called in his preface "a sort of shot- silk texture between philosophical...

The Sea Lady is a fantasy novel written by H. G. Wells that has some of the aspects of a fable. It was serialized from July to December 1901 in Pearson's Magazine before being published as a volume by Methuen. The inspiration for the novel was Wells's glimpse of May Nisbet, the daughter of the Times drama critic, in a bathing suit, when she came to visit at Sandgate, Wells having agreed to pay her school fees after her father's death. The intricately narrated story involves a mermaid who comes ashore on the southern coast of England in 1899. Feigning a desire to become part of genteel...

In the Days of the Comet (1906) is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells in which humanity is "exalted" when a comet causes "the nitrogen of the air, the old azote," to "change out of itself" and become "a respirable gas, differing indeed from oxygen, but helping and sustaining its action, a bath of strength and healing for nerve and brain." This narrative is divided into three "books" Book I: The Comet; Book II: The Green Vapours; and Book III: The New World. Book I, recounts that William ("Willie") Leadford, "third in the office staff of Rawdon's pot-bank a place where pottery is made] in...

Tono-Bungay is a realist semiautobiographical novel written by H. G. Wells and published in 1909. It has been called "arguably his most artistic book." It was originally serialized in The English Review beginning in the magazine's rst issue in December 1908. It was serialized in the United States in The Popular Magazine beginning in the September 1908 issue. Tono-Bungay is narrated by George Ponderevo, who is persuaded to help develop the business of selling Tono-Bungay, a patent medicine created by his ambitious uncle Edward. George devotes seven years to organising the production and...

The Wonderful Visit is an 1895 novel by H. G. Wells. With an angel-a creature of fantasy unlike a religious angel-as protagonist and taking place in contemporary England, the book could be classi ed as contemporary fantasy, although the genre was not recognised in Wells's time. The Wonderful Visit also has strong satirical themes, gently mocking customs and institutions of Victorian England as well as idealistic rebellion itself.The Wonderful Visit tells how an angel spends a little more than a week in southern England. He is at rst mistaken for a bird because of his dazzling polychromatic...

The Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells. The text of the novel is the narration of Edward Prendick, a shipwrecked man rescued by a passing boat who is left on the island home of Doctor Moreau, who creates human-like hybrid beings from animals via vivisection. The novel deals with a number of philosophical themes, including pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity, and human interference with nature. Wells described the novel as "an exercise in youthful blasphemy." The Island of Doctor Moreau is a classic of early science fiction...

The Sleeper Awakes (1910) is a dystopian science ction novel by H. G. Wells about a man who sleeps for two hundred and three years, waking up in a completely transformed London, where, because of compound interest on his bank accounts, he has become the richest man in the world. The main character awakes to see his dreams realised, and the future revealed to him in all its horrors and malformities. The novel is a rewritten version of When the Sleeper Wakes, a story by Wells that was serialised between 1898 and 1899. Each RADLEY CLASSIC is a meticulously restored, luxurious and faithful...