About the Author

H.G. Wells was a professional writer and journalist, who published more than a hundred books, including novels, histories, essays and programmes for world regeneration. Wells's prophetic imagination was first displayed in pioneering works of science fiction, but later he became an apostle of socialism, science and progress. His controversial views on sexual equality and the shape of a truly developed nation remain directly relevant to our world today. He was, in Bertrand Russell's words, 'an important liberator of thought and action'. David Lodge is a novelist and critic and Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Birmingham University. Simon J. James is Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Durham. He has written on, and edited works by, George Gissing, H.G. Wells and Charles Dickens.