H. G. Wells H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer. He was prolific in many genres, writing dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, satire, biography, and autobiography, including even two books on war games. He is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called a "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback. During his own lifetime, however, he was most prominent as a forward-looking, even prophetic social critic who devoted his literary talents to the development of a progressive vision on
H. G. Wells fantastic literature. Late in his life, Borges included "The Invisible Man" and "The Time Machine" in his "Prologue to a Personal Library", a curated list of 100 great works of literature that he undertook at the behest of the Argentine publishing house Emecé. Canadian author Margaret Atwood read Wells' books, and he also inspired writers of European speculative fiction such as Karel Čapek and Yevgeny Zamyatin. In 1954, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign purchased the H. G Wells literary papers and correspondence collection. The University's Rare Book & Manuscript Library holds the largest collection of Wells manuscripts, correspondence, first