When Dr Philip Raven, a diplomat working for the League of Nations, dies in the 1930s, he leaves behind a book of dreams outlining the visions he has been experiencing for many years. These visions seem to be glimpses into the future, detailing events that will occur on Earth for the next two hundred years.

This fictional 'history of the future' proved prescient in many ways, as Wells predicted events such as the Second World War, the rise of chemical warfare, climate change and the growing instability of the Middle East.

H.G. Wells's novel is put in its varied scientific, literary, and political contexts in this new edition.

After the Lady Vain is shipwrecked, Edward Prendick is plucked from the waves by a passing ship and deposited on a remote island. Here he is the guest of Dr Moreau, whose notorious scientific methods had caused an uproar that left him with no choice but to flee London. Disquieted and appalled by the pained cries of suffering animals, Edward soon realizes that the Doctor is continuing and developing his depraved experiments, and that he too is in great danger. Shocking and suffused with contemporary fears regarding the morality of the latest advances in science and their possible...

In 1940 the Second World War continued to rage, and atrocities wreaked around the globe made international waves. Wells, a socialist and prominent political thinker as well as a first-rate novelist, set down in The Rights of Man a stirring manifesto, designed to instruct the international community on how best to safeguard human rights. The work gained traction, and was soon under discussion for becoming actual legislation. Although Wells didn't live to see it enacted, his words laid the groundwork for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrined human rights in law for the...