H.G. Wells was an English author who wrote in the late 1800s through the mid-1900s. Most of his work centered on the genre of science fiction, so much so that he is often referred to as "The Father of Science Fiction."
Wells was born on September 1866 in Bromley, Kent, England. He was one of four children born into an impoverished family. An inheritance allowed the family to purchase a small shop and that as well as the money Wells' father, Joseph, made from playing cricket was used to support the family. When he was eight years old, Wells had an accident, which left him in bed with a broken leg. It was during this time that he began reading books to pass the time. This instilled in him a desire to write.
When Joseph fractured his thigh, it ended his career as a cricket player and the family sunk deeper into poverty. To help support themselves, Joseph made the boys of the family apprentice at different occupations. Wells disliked his apprenticeship at the Southsea Drapery Emporium, but he did use the experiences from the three years he spent there in two of his novels, The Wheels of Chance and Kipps. Wells left Southsea for Midhurst Grammar School, where he became a pupil and pupil teacher. He won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science, where he studied zoology. Wells would eventually receive his Bachelor of Science in zoology in 1890 from the University of London External Programme.
In 1895, Wells wrote one of his most famous novels, The Time Machine. He would be the first to use the phrase "time machine," which became known as a universal way to use a vehicle to travel through time. The protagonist of the book is an English scientist and inventor merely referred to as the Time Traveller. He reveals to his weekly dinner guests that he had invented a machine which allows him to travel through time. The next week he tells them of his journey as he travels to 802,701 A.D. and meets the society of Eloi.
Wells often projected his own political beliefs in his writings. With The Time Machine, the futuristic people were living in a peaceful communist community, yet the Time Traveller discovers the society is actually fragmented into the Elois and the Morlocksm, a downtrodden people who live in darkness underground. The Morlocks take the time machine and while looking for it, the Time Traveller discovers that the Morlocks feed on the Eloi. The Time Traveller eventually gets the time machine back and travels further into the future, only to find a dying Earth. When he returns, the Time Traveller discovers he has only been gone for three hours. While The Time Machine is in the public domain of Australia, Canada, and the United States, it will not be in the public domain of the European Union until 2017.
Wells would go on to write other popular science fiction works including The Island of Dr. Moreau, The First Men in the Moon, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, and When the Sleeper Wakes.
Wells' first wife was his cousin, Isabel Mary. He left her in 1894 for his student Amy Catherine Robbins. Although he and Amy Catherine would remain married until her death in 1927, he had affairs with many women including Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth von Arnim, Moura Budberg, Amber Reeves (with whom he had a daughter), and Rebecca West (with whom he had a son).
Wells died on August 13, 1946 of unknown causes, although it is thought that it was due to complications from diabetes or liver cancer.