HERBERT GEORGE WELLS. — English social writer and storyteller, b. 21 Sept. 1866, d. 13 Aug. 1946, a disciple of T. H. Huxley, remained throughout his life a modernist and apostle of scientific progress.
The pseudoprophetic message that may be drawn from his vast oeuvre is that God is an automatic and incomplete deity who requires human cooperation to overcome the various forms of evil and achieve full actualization. Some of his books, such as *The Time Machine* (1895), *The War of the Worlds* (1898), and *The Invisible Man* (1897), became popular as fantastic visions of the future of science and are read as adventure novels; others address and disseminate social issues, though only a few possess narrative quality, and even these do not stand out for stylistic excellence, since W. lacked the innate talent of a Dickens or the vivacity and wit of his friend G. B. Shaw. Among his most successful works is *Tono-Bungay* (1909), in which the class of newly rich Englishmen at the end of the 19th century is felicitously characterized. The view he presents of world history in works intended for a broad readership, such as *A Short History of the World* (1922), was harshly criticized by Belloc. W. has often been presented as a champion of optimistic positivism, but the tone of his later writings frequently darkens into pessimism.