Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English author, best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary. Together with Jules Verne, Wells has been referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction".
Wells was an outspoken socialist and sympathetic to pacifist views, although he supported the First World War once it was under way, and his later works became increasingly political and didactic. His middle period novels (1900–1920) were less science-fictional; they covered lower-middle class life (The History of Mr Polly) and the 'New Woman' and the Suffragettes (Ann Veronica).
Biography
Early life
Herbert George Wells was born at Atlas House, 47 High Street, Bromley, in the county of Kent, on 21 September 1866.[1] Called "Bertie" in the family, he was the fourth and last child of Joseph Wells (a former domestic gardener, and at the time a shopkeeper and amateur cricketer) and his wife Sarah Neal (a former domestic servant). The family was of the impoverished lower middle class. An inheritance had allowed them to purchase a shop in which they sold china and sporting goods, although it was never prosperous: the stock was old and worn out, and the location was poor. They managed to earn a meagre income, but little of it came from the shop; Joseph received an unsteady amount of money from playing professional cricket for the Kent county team. Payment for skilled bowlers and batsmen came from voluntary donations afterwards, or from small payments from the clubs where matches were played.
A defining incident of young Wells's life was an accident he had in 1874, which left him bedridden with a broken leg. To pass the time he started reading books from the local library, brought to him by his father. He soon became devoted to the other worlds and lives to which books gave him access; they also stimulated his desire to write. Later that year he entered Thomas Morley's Commercial Academy, a private school founded in 1849 following the bankruptcy of Morley's earlier school. The teaching was erratic, the curriculum mostly focused, Wells later said, on producing copperplate handwriting and doing the sort of sums useful to tradesmen. Wells continued at Morley's Academy until 1880. In 1877, his father, Joseph Wells, fractured his thigh. The accident effectively put an end to Joseph's career as a cricketer, and his earnings as a shopkeeper were not enough to compensate for the loss.
No longer able to support themselves financially, the family instead sought to place their boys as apprentices to various occupations. From 1880 to 1883, Wells had an unhappy apprenticeship as a draper at the Southsea Drapery Emporium: Hyde's. His experiences were later used as inspiration for his novels The Wheels of Chance and Kipps, which describe the life of a draper's apprentice as well as being critiques of the world's distribution of wealth.
Wells's mother and father had never got along with one another particularly well (she was a Protestant, he a freethinker), and when she went back to work as a lady's maid (at Uppark, a country house in Sussex) one of the conditions of work was that she would not have space for her husband or children. Thereafter, she and Joseph lived separate lives, though they never divorced and neither ever developed any other liaison. As for Wells, he not only failed at being a draper, he also failed as a chemist's assistant, and after each failure, he would arrive at Uppark — "the bad shilling back again!" as he said — and stay there until a fresh start could be arranged for him. Fortunately for Wells, Uppark had a magnificent library in which he immersed himself, reading many classic works, including Plato's Republic, and More's Utopia.
赫伯特·乔治·威尔斯,H·G·威尔斯(Herbert George Wells,1866年9月21日-1946年8月13日),英国著名小说家,新闻记者、政治家、社会学家和历史学家。他创作的科幻小说对该领域影响深远,如“时间旅行”、“外星人”、“反乌托邦”等都是20世纪科幻小说中的主流话题。
1884年他得到助学金(每星期一个基尼),进入了英国皇家科学院的前身堪津顿科学师范学校。他在这里学习物理学、化学、地质学、天文学和生物学。其中他的生物学老师是著名的进化论科学家托马斯·赫胥黎(Thomas Henry Huxley),他后来的科幻小说写作受赫胥黎的进化论思想影响很大。1890年他以动物学的优异成绩获得了伦敦大学帝国理工学院的理学学士学位。从1891年到1893年在伦敦大学函授学院教授生物学。
创作生涯
Bantam经典版《时间机器》封面从1891年开始,威尔斯为一些报刊撰写文章。1893年患上了肺出血,休养期间,开始写作短篇小说、散文和评论,同时也开始了科普创作,例如《百万年的人》(The Man of the Year Million)中他大胆设想在自然选择影响下未来人类的形象,巨大的眼睛,细长的手。
随后《全国观察家》发表了威尔斯关于时间旅行的设想的连载文章,后来在1895年把这些文章改为《時間機器》(The Time Machine)的小说发行。此书的出版引起轰动,也奠定了他作为科幻小说作家的声誉。
此后,他又陆续发表了《莫洛博士岛》(The Island of Dr. Moreau)、《隐身人》(The Invisible Man)、《世界大战》(The War of the Worlds)、《神的食物》等科幻小说,还写了大量的论文和长篇小说。
1903年,威尔斯成为标榜改良主义的社会主义团体费边社社员。对于费边社温和的、改良主义的社会主义思想他仍然认为过于激进。而他对年轻成员的影响和个人领袖欲的膨胀,使他和费边社的领导成员肖伯纳等发生不合,最后退出了这个组织。他的长篇小说《安·维尼罗卡》(Ann Veronica)和《新马基雅弗利》(The New Machiavelli)反映的就是他在这段时期的生活经验。
第一次世界大战后,他用了1年时间完成了100多万字的《世界史纲》(The Outline of History),这本著作展现了他作为历史学家的一面。
01Ann Veronica, a modern love story (English) (as Author)
02Anticipations Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human life and Thought (English) (as Author)
03Certain Personal Matters (English) (as Author)
04The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories (English) (as Author)
05The Door in the Wall and Other Stories (English) (as Author)
06An Englishman Looks at the World (English) (as Author)
07First and Last Things (English) (as Author)
08The First Men in the Moon (English) (as Author)
09The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (English) (as Author)
10God the Invisible King (English) (as Author)
11The History of Mr. Polly (English) (as Author)
12In the Days of the Comet (English) (as Author)
13In the Fourth Year Anticipations of a World Peace (English) (as Author)
14The Invisible Man (English) (as Author)
15The Island of Doctor Moreau (English) (as Author)
16Love and Mr. Lewisham (English) (as Author)
17Mankind in the Making (English) (as Author)
18A Modern Utopia (English) (as Author)
19Mr. Britling Sees It Through (English) (as Author)
20The New Machiavelli (English) (as Author)
21New Worlds For Old A Plain Account of Modern Socialism (English) (as Author)
22The Passionate Friends (English) (as Author)
23The Sleeper Awakes A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes (English) (as Author)
24The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents (English) (as Author)
25Tales of Space and Time (English) (as Author)
26Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata (English) (as Author)
27The Time Machine (English) (as Author)
28Tono Bungay (English) (as Author)
29Twelve Stories and a Dream (English) (as Author)
30War and the future: Italy, France and Britain at war (English) (as Author)
31The War in the Air (English) (as Author)
32The War of the Worlds (English) (as Author)
33What is Coming? (English) (as Author)
34The Wheels of Chance (English) (as Author)
35When the Sleeper Wakes (English) (as Author)
36The World Set Free (English) (as Author)