Literary Birthday – 21 September – H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells was born on 21 September 1866 and died on 13 August 1946.

H. G. Wells Quotes

Read the opening lines of The War of the Worlds: ‘No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water…’

1. Nothing leads so straight to futility as literary ambitions without systematic knowledge.
2. No passion in the world is equal to the passion to alter someone else’s draft.
3. Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
4. Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
5. If you are in difficulties with a book, try the element of surprise: attack it at an hour when it isn’t expecting it.
6. Our true nationality is mankind.
7. So many promising girls allowed themselves to be submerged altogether in marriage for a time, and when they emerged everyone had forgotten the promise of their début.
8. Advertising is legalised lying.
9. We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery.
10. If we don’t end war, war will end us.
11. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men’s lives should not pay with their own.
12. I write as straight as I can, just as I walk as straight as I can, because that is the best way to get there. (from Experiment in Autobiography)

Read: 7 Bits Of Writing Advice From H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells was an English writer best known for pioneering speculative fiction and science fiction. He also wrote contemporary novels, history, politics, social commentary, textbooks, and works on war games. His wide-ranging career made him an important literary and social commentator of his time. Wells’s early scientific training influenced his fiction, which used imaginative ideas to explore social and political issues. His most famous dystopian and science-fiction novels include The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The Island of Dr. Moreau. These works explored ideas about evolution, scientific ambition, social class, warfare, and the possible consequences of human progress. He also wrote novels about contemporary life, including Kipps, The History of Mr Polly, and Tono-Bungay. His non-fiction ranged from social and political commentary to large-scale works of history. Wells became one of the most influential early writers of science fiction and is sometimes called ‘The Father of Science Fiction’, alongside Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback. His stories introduced ideas such as time travel and alien invasion that became lasting parts of the genre. Many of Wells’s novels and short stories have been adapted for film, television, and radio. His work continues to influence modern writers.

Source for Image: George Charles Beresford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:H.G._Wells_by_Beresford.jpg

by Amanda Patterson
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