H.G. Wells

In 1898, H.G. Wells, the British novelist, journalist and philosopher, wrote The War of the Worlds, a science fiction classic. The novel, which tells the story of a martian invasion on the Earth, was made into a film on two separate occassions: the first film premiered in 1953, in the midst of the Cold War, when many viewers identified the martians with the Soviets, and the second film made its debut in 2004 with director Steven Spielberg’s spectacular special effects and Tom Cruise as the only human capable of confronting the extra-terrestrials. However, the most famous adaptation of The War of the Worlds was made in 1938 starring a young Orson Wells, who produced, directed and narrated the novel’s transmission over the radio without letting his listeners know that it was a work of fiction. The radio program was interrupted by a report of a martian invasion in New Jersey, which sent New Yorkers into a panic.

H.G. Wells predicted several technological advancements and wars in works such as The Time Machine, his first book written in 1895. In it, Wells deals with social struggle and class distinction by imagining a future where the elite and the working classes have evolved as two separate species.

The Time Machine was followed by The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) and The First Men in the Moon (1901), a novel that predicted space travel. Early in his career, H.G. Wells thought that human reasoning and common sense could control the forces of nature, but he was overtaken by pessimism. Eventually, Wells cast doubts on even the survival of mankind in his 1939 novel, The Fate of Homo Sapiens.