Jan 3, 2010

The War of the Worlds | About the Author

By the time he died on August 13, 1946, in London, Herbert George Wells was admired as a prophet and as an important social philosopher who helped shape the modern world; but at his birth on September 21, 1866, his future seemed likely to be one of little education, poorly paying jobs, and anonymity. His father was a professional cricket player and shopkeeper, and his mother was a maidservant. From 1874 to 1880, Wells attended Thomas Morley's Commercial Academy, and as a fourteen-year-old he was apprenticed first to a dry goods merchant and later to a druggist. When seventeen, he tried...