Today is the birthday of H.G. Wells and Google celebrated with Google-Doodle with UFO’s and Martians razing the countryside.
Brought up in a working class household he apprenticed as a draper and chemist before returning to school and eventually gaining a scholarship to what become the Royal College of Sciences (and now part of Imperial College London) where he became politically active and furthered his interest in literature before graduating.
About every article I’ve read about H.G. Wells at least mentions his politics. He described himself as a socialist and indeed was a candidate for the Labour party in the 1922 and 1923 elections. How
The one constant was his belief in a world state or government. He was part of the group that wrote the charter of the League of Nations, interestingly he opposed any mention of democracy in the charter and imagined a world where suffrage was limited to people of merit like scientists, engineers and so on. He felt that the average person could not be educated to the point of having an educated opinion on world issues and therefore could not be trusted to be part of making those decisions.
However he did believe in personal freedom, as long as it did not infringe upon the freedoms of others. He felt that the people of the world should have freedom to grow, advance by merit and fulfill their potential in a society driven by science and logic.
This view was shown time and time again in his writings, not least in probably his most famous work, The War of the Worlds. Here the unnamed artilleryman describes a utopian society hidden underground. After the defeat of the Martians, H.G. Wells envisioned the world (or certainly the UK) as a blank slate to be rebuilt. The War of the Worlds was first published in 1898 and in print ever since.
“And before we judge them [the aliens] too harshly, we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought, not only upon animals, such as the vanished bison and the dodo, but upon its own inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. Are we such apostles of mercy as to complain if the Martians warred in the same spirit?”
Chapter I, “The Eve of the War”.
This utopian society was reflected in a number of his books, most well known is probably “The Shape of Things to Come”. Where a world council made up of scientists; take over after the devastation of the world by war and disease.
Clearly Wells was controversial in his views, never less so in his promotion of eugenics. He was clear in his belief in selective breeding and the “sterilization of failure”. There is a suggestion that he saw the “men-creatures” seen in his book The Time Machine to be the result of world not embracing eugenics.
War of the Worlds was one of the first science fiction books I recall. I read it after it being recommended by my father. It was followed by Asimov, Arthur C Clark, Ben Bova and many, many others, but it was H.G. Wells that started my love of science fiction. Thanks Dad.
During his lifetime he was primarily known as a socialist philosopher, and he made significant and lasting contributions to contemporary politics. His writing was well known, but often overlooked during his lifetime. It’s arguable that only since his death in 1946 has he been seen as one of the true pioneers of science fiction and taken his place among the elite of the genre.
