The Young H.G. Wells
Changing the World
1st Edition
Published on 4. November 2021
272 pages
978-0-241-97484-1 (ISBN)
Description
A fascinating journey into the life of H.G. Wells, from one of Britain's best biographers
How did the first forty years of H. G. Wells' life shape the father of science fiction?
From his impoverished childhood in a working-class English family, to his determination to educate himself at any cost, to the serious ill health that dominated his twenties and thirties, his complicated marriages, and love affair with socialism, the first forty years of H. G. Wells' extraordinary life would set him on a path to become one of the world's most influential writers. The sudden success of The Time Machine and The War of The Worlds transformed his life and catapulted him to international fame; he became the writer who most inspired Orwell and countless others, and predicted men walking on the moon seventy years before it happened.
In this remarkable, empathetic biography, Claire Tomalin paints a fascinating portrait of a man like no other, driven by curiosity and desiring reform, a socialist and a futurist whose new and imaginative worlds continue to inspire today.
'The finest of biographers' Hilary Mantel
'A most intelligent and sympathetic biographer' Daily Telegraph
'One of the best biographers of her generation' Guardian
How did the first forty years of H. G. Wells' life shape the father of science fiction?
From his impoverished childhood in a working-class English family, to his determination to educate himself at any cost, to the serious ill health that dominated his twenties and thirties, his complicated marriages, and love affair with socialism, the first forty years of H. G. Wells' extraordinary life would set him on a path to become one of the world's most influential writers. The sudden success of The Time Machine and The War of The Worlds transformed his life and catapulted him to international fame; he became the writer who most inspired Orwell and countless others, and predicted men walking on the moon seventy years before it happened.
In this remarkable, empathetic biography, Claire Tomalin paints a fascinating portrait of a man like no other, driven by curiosity and desiring reform, a socialist and a futurist whose new and imaginative worlds continue to inspire today.
'The finest of biographers' Hilary Mantel
'A most intelligent and sympathetic biographer' Daily Telegraph
'One of the best biographers of her generation' Guardian
Reviews / Votes
You put down Tomalin's book knowing you have met a living author * The Times * Richly informative... Tomalin admits that, although she set out to write about the young Wells, she has followed him into his forties because she found him 'too interesting to leave'. The same can be said of her book * Sunday Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
File size
11,41 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-241-97484-1 (9780241974841)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
11/2022
Penguin Books Ltd
€14.00
Shipment within 15-20 days
Book
11/2021
Viking
€25.00
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Person
Claire Tomalin is one of Britain's greatest living biographers. Her biographies include Jane Austen: A Life, The Invisible Woman, a definitive account of Dickens' relationship with the actress Ellen Ternan, which won three major literary awards, and Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self was Whitbread Book of the Year in 2002. In the highly acclaimed Charles Dickens: A Life, she presents a full-scale biography of our greatest novelist. She is married to the writer Michael Frayn.
