This is the first new complete literary biography of H G Wells for thirty years, and the first to encompass his entire career as a writer, from the science fiction of the 1890s through his fiction and non-fiction writing all the way up to his last publication in 1946. Adam Roberts provides a comprehensive reassessment of Wells' importance as a novelist, short-story writer, a theorist of social prophecy and utopia, journalist and commentator, offering a nuanced portrait of the man who coined the phrases 'atom bomb', 'League of Nations' 'the war to end war' and 'time machine', who wrote the world's first comprehensive global history and invented the idea of the tank. In these twenty-six chapters, Roberts covers the entirety of Wells' life and discusses every book and short story he produced, delivering a complete vision of this enduring figure.

Authored by one of the world's foremost science-fiction critics Constitutes one of the only literary biographies of this widely-studied and much-loved writer Groups chronological accounts of Wells' life and his writing into seven sections: autobiography, science fiction, the mainstream novel, journalism, utopia, celebrity and posthumous impact

Autorentext
Adam Roberts is Professor of Nineteenth-century Literature and Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, and also an award-winning writer of science fiction. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Vice-President of the H G Wells Society.

Inhalt

1. Childhood.- 2. Short Fiction.- 3. Science Fiction.- 4. Bicycles and Tripods.- 5. A New Century.- 6. Anticipations.- 7. Kipps : a study in Artistry.- 8. Sex.- 9. Socialism and America.- 10. Amber Reeves.- 11. Tono-Bungay.- 12. Mr Polly.- 13. Elizabeth von Arnim.- 14. War.- 15. Boon and Bealby.- 16. Rebecca West.- 17. Mr Wells Sees Through It.- 18. League of Nations.- 19. Education.- 20. World-Historical.- 21. Futures and Pasts.- 22. Odette Keun.- 23. Life Stories.- 24. Later Non-Fiction.- 25. Later Fiction.- 26. Tethersend.