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H.G.Wells is considered by some to be the father of modern science fiction. He was born in Bromley, Kent on September. 21st 1866, the fourth child of a gardener and a lady's maid who had met when both worked at an estate called Up Park. They had been married eleven years when Bertie was born and for those eleven years had tried to make a living out of a crockery shop named Atlas House. It was a living scarcely distinguishable from poverty; they were able to survive only because of Joseph Wells's career as a professional cricket player and the sale of cricket equipment in the shop. But it was the burial ground of their hopes. In such dismal circumstances Bertie came along, unwanted, ignored by his father, who was away from home a great deal, and fussed over by his mother, whose fear of failure reflected the English apprehension that success was only a thin crust separating citizens from the volcano beneath. In Sarah Wells's early Victorian world the most important thing for her children was "getting on," and getting on meant having a solid trade to which one was apprenticed early. Wells attributed his escape from this life and his mother's plans for him to two broken legs. The first happened to Bertie at the age of seven shortly after his mother proposed that he start helping out in Atlas House. Wells called it "one of the luckiest events of my life" and because of it, he wrote, "I am alive today and writing this autobiography instead of being a worn-out, dismissed and already dead shop assistant." During the weeks he was laid up on the parlor sofa, he was deluged by books brought home by his father and sent to him by neighbors. He grew up under the continual threat of poverty, and at 14, after a very inadequate education supplemented by his inexhaustible love of reading, he was apprenticed to a draper in Windsor. His employer soon dismissed him; and he became assistant to a chemist, then to another draper, and finally, in 1883, an usher at Midhurst Grammar School. Later, Wells won a scholarship and furthered his education at the Normal School of Science in London. It was at the Normal School that Wells came under the wing of the famous biologist Thomas H. Huxley. Wells's "science fiction" (although he never called it such) was clearly influenced by his studies at the Normal School and the interest that he developed in biology. Perhaps more important than his classwork to his later career were his extracurricular activities. He was a faithful member of the Debating Society, attended meetings of the Fabian Society and listened excitedly to the speeches and debates of some of the great men of his time, and, with some friends, founded the Science Schools Journal. He was the first editor and he wrote several pieces for it that evidenced an early interest and skill in speculation. One was an article on "The Past and Present of the Human Race" (which was revised and published in the Pall Mall Budget in 1893 as "The Man of the Year Million"); in it he imagined a time when distant descendants of mankind would be great brains floating in tubs of nutritive fluids, when humanity would live by chemicals and sunlight alone on a planet where it had destroyed all other plants and animals (cf. John W. Campbell's 1934 story "Twilight"); when humanity's heirs would be driven underground by the cooling of the sun and earth to live in galleries linked to the surface by ventilating shafts (cf. E. M. Forster's 1909 story "The Machine Stops"). He also wrote for the Journal some science-fiction stories, including one about time travel called "The Chronic Argonauts." In 1894 Lewis Hind, the editor of the Pall Mall Budget suggested that Wells use his knowledge of science to write a series of stories for which he would be paid five guineas each (a guinea was a pound plus a shilling). "The Stolen Bacillus" soon was on the editor's desk and five more followed before the year was over. The big opportunity came, however, when William Ernest Henley, editor of the National Observer (and author of "Invictus"), asked Wells for a series of articles. Wells dug up what he called his "peculiar treasure," "The Chronic Argonauts," and revised it as seven articles that were published in 1894. Wells exploded into fame with his first major fiction work: The Time Machine in 1895. Soon after the publication of this book, Wells followed with The Island of Dr. Moreau (1895), The Invisible Man (1897), and perhaps his most famous popular work: The War of the Worlds (1898). Over the years Wells became concerned with the fate of human society in a world where technology and scientific study were advancing at a rapid pace. In 1903 he joined the Fabian society and tried, unsuccessfully, to turn it into more than a genteel debating society. He became acquainted with politicians and newspaper publishers, even joining elite discussion groups that included future war ministers and Lord Chancellors, foreign secretaries, and directors of the London School of Economics, as well as Bertrand Russell and Sidney Webb. Wells's later works became less science fiction than social critique. The accuracy of the "science" in Wells's work has often been called into question. It is rumoured that Wells and the French novelist Jules Verne actually criticised each other's writing. Wells's claim was that "Verne couldn't write himself out of a paper sack" and Verne accused Wells of having "scientifically implausible ideas." The science may not be accurate, but the adventure and creativity with which Wells's wrote makes his early science fiction fun and fascinating to read. Well's acknowledged his indebtedness to a number of writers, including Hawthorne, Poe, Kipling, and others, particularly Sterne and Swift, although he rejected comparisons to Verne and never mentioned Flammarion. Ultimately all the material Wells touched, including his own life, became his subject, and he made it his own. His vision of humanity and its problems and its place in the universe sometimes transformed that material into art. Recuperating at Sandgate from a painful illness Wells was looking ahead and speculating about what would happen in the twentieth century. His scientific prophecies about space travel and moon landings are well remembered, but the first book he completed at Spade house is almost forgotten. Called Anticipations, it began by discussing how the evolution of transport would result in the redistribution of population; " and everybody in 1900 was shirking the necessity for great political reconstruction everywhere". His foresight can be measured by the fact that the century was half over before the jet age arrived, with hundreds of thousands of people being airborne every day and of course the need for "political reconstruction" is Europe's most pressing preoccupation since we have entered the 21st Century. Some fifty years after Wells died, we can look back with awe to the turn of the 20th century 100 years ago when his presence resulted in Sandgate becoming the creative centre of the world's richest literary periods. He built Spade House with the royalties earned from novels like First Men in the Moon and The War of the Worlds.. H.G Wells actually came to Folkestone via New Romney, where he had consulted Dr. Henry Hick, at a time when he was almost confined to a wheelchair due to his poor health. Suffering from kidney problems he was referred to a London surgeon who removed the offending organ. While recuperating from what the surgeon's believed to be an attack of kidney stones, Wells became godfather to Dr. Hicks new-born daughter and amused himself by writing and illustrating for her a little booklet called " The Adventures of Tommy". When she grew up and needed money for medical training she asked Well's permission to sell the story. A copy can still be found in Folkestone town library. Sandgate's period as a centre of literature and culture began soon after his recovery at New Romney. He records how his second wife Jane (her name was actually Amy Catherine, but wells did not like that, so he renamed her) put him in a comfortable carriage and drove him to Sandgate. They moved into a furnished house called "Beach Cottage" - so close to the sea that in bad weather the sea broke over the roof. One of Well's drawings, which he called "picshuas", shows Beach Cottage under the sort of assault that was well known down in Sandgate until quite recently, when the beach replenishment programme was successfully put into action. Beach Cottage can still be found today but it has been renamed "Granville Cottage". Enjoying Sandgate so much, the Wells had their furniture transported down from Worcester Park, Southwest London, and took a lease on "Arnold House" whilst they awaited the construction of Spade House. It was whilst dwelling at this residence and Spade House that Wells wrote "The Sea Lady" and "Anticipations" (The full title being "Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific progress upon Human life and Thought"). Following this was the so called scandalous "A Modern Utopia". Ann Veronica came forthwith and caused even more scandal. The publishers, Macmillan, would not risk their good name, so issued it under another; and Vicars in their pulpits spurned it, and society began to ignored Wells. It is in what is now a tool shed, that Wells wrote his three most important novels. These were Kipps, a young man who started work at what must have been Plummer Roddis's emporium in Folkestone, The History of Miss Polly, and Tono Bungay, stories which paint a vivid picture of what was seedy old Kent.
Wells brought other famous people to Sandgate; including Sir James
Barrie, creator of Peter Pan; G.K. Chesterton, and Henry James. George
Bernard Shaw became a lifelong friend, as did Arnold Bennett and Joseph
Conrad. Henry James lived and worked in Rye for many years - partly because
he could come to Spade House and argue with Wells. Stephen Crane, who
wrote The Red Badge of Courage, lived at Brede and was another Spade House
regular. Joseph Conrad (real name Yosef Konrad Korzeniowski), who owned
a farm at Postling wrote to Wells after reading The Invisible Man saying
:" I am always powerfully impressed by your work. Impressed is the
word, O Realist of the Fantastic! If you want to know what impresses me
it is to see how you contrive to give over humanity to the clutches of
the Impossible and yet manage to keep it down (or up) to its humanity,
to its flesh, blood, sorrow, folly. That is the achievement". Prior
to Conrad's ownership, the farm was occupied by poet Christine Rossetti
and artist Walter Crane. Ford Madox Ford, another friend though they later
had serious disagreements, called Wells "The Dean of our Profession,"
and said, "It did not take us long to recognize that there was Genius.
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| H G Wells Literature: | ||||||
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The
Science Fiction of H.G. Wells Vol 1 |
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H.G.
Wells - the Science Fiction Vol 2: The Invisible Man / When the Sleeper
Awakes / The Shape of Things to Come |
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War
of the Worlds: Cassettes |
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The
War of the Worlds (2CD)
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