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  • Published: 14 November 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241277492
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 704
  • RRP: $37.00

The Great Science Fiction

The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, Short Stories



An omnibus of all four of the greatest science-fiction novels of H. G. Wells

In the space of less than four years, H. G. Wells (1866-1946) published four of the most influential, original and hair-raising of all works of science-fiction. In a life of tireless experiment, travelling and intellectual engagement, Wells was both a leading public figure and one of the great imaginers of the modern world, but his reputation was always dominated by these amazing novels: The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds. Each is great in its own right, but they also became the 'books of Genesis' for entire genres of speculative fiction.

This omnibus allows them to be read together, perhaps for the first time allowing the full range of Wells's achievement to be understood.

  • Published: 14 November 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241277492
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 704
  • RRP: $37.00

About the author

H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells, the third son of a small shopkeeper, was born in Bromley in 1866. After two years' apprenticeship in a draper's shop, he became a pupil-teacher at Midhurst Grammar School and won a scholarship to study under T. H. Huxley at the Normal School of Science, South Kensington. He taught biology before becoming a professional writer and journalist. He wrote more than a hundred books, including novels, essays, histories and programmes for world regeneration.

Wells, who rose from obscurity to world fame, had an emotionally and intellectually turbulent life. His prophetic imagination was first displayed in pioneering works of science fiction such as The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898). Later he became an apostle of socialism, science and progress, whose anticipations of a future world state include The Shape of Things to Come (1933). His controversial views on sexual equality and women's rights were expressed in the novels Ann Veronica (1909) and The New Machiavelli (1911). He was, in Bertrand Russell's words, 'an important liberator of thought and action'.

Wells drew on his own early struggles in many of his best novels, including Love and Mr Lewisham (1900), Kipps (1905), Tono-Bungay (1909) and The History of Mr Polly (1910). His educational works, some written in collaboration, include The Outline of History (1920) and The Science of Life (1930). His Experiment in Autobiography (2 vols., 1934) reviews his world. He died in London in 1946.

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