Herbert Wells: Interesting Facts About the Science Fiction Writer
English writer Herbert Wells was an extraordinarily versatile person, and the flight of his imagination knew no bounds. In the realm of science fiction, he is a competitor to Jules Verne, and while Verne pioneered the genre, Wells continued it with distinction.
Interesting Facts About Herbert Wells
● The future science fiction writer was born on September 21, 1866, in a suburb of London. His father was a gardener and later a professional cricket player. His mother worked as a maid in a wealthy household (Wells later described this house in the novel "Tono-Bungay").
● There is an interesting moment in Herbert Wells' short biography that shaped his entire life. It turns out that in his childhood, he was not interested in books at all until, at the age of 8, he accidentally broke his leg! The fracture confined him to bed for a long time, and bored out of his mind, he began to read to pass the time. Books so captivated young Herbert that he became an avid reader and soon burned with the desire to start writing himself.
● Many science fiction writers "predicted" scientific discoveries that later actually happened. In Herbert Wells' life, there were such predictions too — for example, he expressed the idea of a four-dimensional space a decade before Einstein. He also predicted wars using poisonous gases (World War I), lasers, combat aircraft, World War II, and the atomic bomb used during that very Second World War. It creates the impression that he really saw the future.
● Herbert Wells' political views were quite unusual for a Briton — he was a socialist. While many of his compatriots saw only the "red threat" in the USSR, Wells visited the USSR three times and was personally acquainted with Lenin and Stalin.
● His most famous works are "The Invisible Man," "The War of the Worlds," and "The Time Machine." In reality, Herbert Wells published about 40 novels in his lifetime, numerous works in politics and philosophy, children's books, a series of film scripts, and a vast number of publications.
● In 1938, one of the most famous hoaxes in the world took place in the USA. The radio play of Herbert Wells' "The War of the Worlds" was presented by the radio station as a real report about a Martian invasion, leading to unprecedented panic. When the hoax was revealed, enraged residents nearly lynched the radio hosts on the nearest tree, but the police managed to rescue them from the crowd.
● In Herbert Wells' books, the concept of parallel worlds appeared for the first time in literary history. Nowadays, this idea is popular in both cinema and literature and seems familiar to us, but Wells was the first to invent and introduce it.
● Despite lacking an artistic education, the writer drew excellently. Herbert Wells did not paint pictures, but he often made small drawings, sometimes leaving them even in the margins of books he read. Later, many of his drawings were collected by fans of his work into a single collection.
● After Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, Wells' books were immediately blacklisted in that country. The writer himself was included in a special secret list of prominent British citizens who were to be arrested after the successful capture of Britain by Germany. But these plans were not destined to come true.
● The writer was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times, but he never received it. His candidacy was rejected for a rather unusual reason — because of his excessive popularity within one genre. For readers worldwide, Herbert Wells was primarily a science fiction writer, despite his works in other genres.
● Wells' works have been adapted for the screen several dozen times, with the first adaptation taking place in 1919, over a hundred years ago. However, he had not only admirers but also critics — for instance, Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the famous Sherlock Holmes, spoke quite coolly about his work.
● In 1889, Wells took a job as a teacher at a small private school, Henley House. Among the subjects he taught were English and drawing. The school's owner was John Vince Milne, and his son, Alan Alexander Milne, studied there. Thus, the future author of "The War of the Worlds" was the schoolteacher of the future author of "Winnie-the-Pooh."
● Wells suffered from diabetes and was a founder of the British Diabetic Association. Today, it is the largest charity and scientific organization in Britain that helps people suffering from diabetes.
● Herbert Wells died on August 13, 1946, at the age of 79, from complications due to severe metabolic issues. His body was cremated, and his ashes were later scattered in the English Channel.
