H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

Alone--it is wonderful how little a man can do alone! To rob a little, to hurt a little, and there is the end. The Original 1897 Classic. A curious man, wearing a long coat, a wide-brimmed hat, and whose face is entirely swathed in bandages save for an obvious fake pink nose, walks into an English inn to the shock and horror of many of the townspeople. Beakers and chemicals in tow, the man demands his solitude. It's strange enough as it is until his...

"When massive, intelligent aliens from Mars touch down in Victorian England and threaten to destroy the civilized world, humanity's vaunted knowledge proves to be of little use. First published in 1898, H.G. Wells's masterpiece of speculative fiction has thrilled and delighted generations of readers, spawned countless imitations, and inspired dramatizations by such masters as Orson Welles and Steven Spielberg. The War of the Worlds is a fantasy that...

"The Island of Doctor Moreau is the account of Edward Prendick, an English gentleman who finds himself shipwrecked and an unwelcomed guest on the Pacific island of one Doctor Moreau. There, Prendick discovers Moreau is performing horrific experiments, using vivisection to craft animals into human beings" -- Provided by publisher.

This frighteningly prophetic tale from the progenitor of modern science fiction remains as powerful today as when it was written-more than a century ago. Firebrand activist Graham falls into a drug-induced sleep in 1897 London-and is stunned to wake in the year 2100 to a world he does not know. But the world knows him. When word spreads that the "Sleeper" has awakened, it rocks the foundations of what the planet has become: a dystopian existence...

H. G. Wells' prophetic The War in the Air foretold the use of airplanes in warfare and the coming of World War I. First serialized in 1907 and published in book form in 1908, the novel tells the story of the forward-thinking tinkerer Bert Smallways. Alfred Butteridge is said to be the only English aviator to know the "secret of the flying machine." When Bert Smallways accidentally falls into Butteridge's hot air balloon, he soon finds himself

...

"Building on the recent discovery that "the atom, that once we thought hard and impenetrable, and indivisible and final and - lifeless - lifeless, is really a reservoir of immense energy," Wells conjures a 1950s England in which clean, efficient atomic engines have transformed life for the better. Alas, a world war breaks out, in which atomic bombs wipe out the world's great cities. Worldwide civilization is on the brink of collapse, when a conference...

A comet rushes toward earth, a deadly, glowing orb that soon fills the sky and promises doom. But mankind is too busy hating, stealing, scheming, and killing to care. As luminous green trails of cosmic dust and vapor stream across the heavens, blood flows beneath: nations wage all-out war, bitter strikes erupt, and jealous lovers plot revenge and murder. The earth slips past the comet by the narrowest margins, but all succumb to the gases in its tail....

The maid was a young woman of great natural calmness; she was accustomed to let in visitors who had this air of being annoyed and finding one umbrella too numerous for them. It mattered nothing to her that the gentleman was asking for Dr. Martineau as if he was asking for something with an unpleasant taste. Almost imperceptibly she relieved him of his umbrella and juggled his hat and coat on to a massive mahogany stand. "What name, Sir?" she asked,...

It is the first-person narrative of an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and that of his younger brother in London as Earth is invaded by Martians. Written between 1895 and 1897, it is one of the earliest stories that detail a conflict between mankind and an extraterrestrial race.

One of the founding fathers of science fiction, H. G. Wells is known for such landmark novels as The Time Machine and The Island of Doctor Moreau. In When the Sleeper Wakes, he sends a nineteenth-century man hurtling into an unfamiliar dystopian future… In 1890s England, Graham, a fanatic socialist and author of prophetic writings, takes medication for his insomnia and is plunged into a deep sleep that lasts two hundred years. He awakens in a domed...