H. G. Wells, the inventor of the concept of the time machine and the phrase 'the Shape of Things to Come' described his life's work as one of 'critical anticipation'. Shadows of the Future identifies this attempt to imagine possible futures as the unifying principle behind Wells's diverse and sometimes wayward literary career. Described by John Middleton Murry as 'the last prophet of bourgeois Europe', he was also its first futurologist.