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Orson Welles' Mercury Theater radio broadcast, based on The War of the Worlds, caused a panic in the Eastern United States on October 30, 1938. In Newark, New Jersey, all the occupants of a block of flats left their homes with wet towels round their heads and in Harlem a congregation fell to its knees. Welles, who first considered the show silly, was shaken by the panic he had unleashed and promised that he would never do anything like it again. Later Welles attempted to claim authorship for the script, but it was written by Howard Koch, whose inside story of the whole episode, The panic broadcast; portrait of an event, appeared in 1970. Wells himself was not amused with the radio play. He met the young director in 1940 at a San Antonio radio station, but was at that time mellowed and advertised Welles next film, Citizen Kane.
World Brain:
The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopaedia
H.G. Wells
Contribution to the new Encyclopédie Française, August, 1937
It is probable that the idea of an encyclopaedia may undergo very considerable extension and elaboration in the near future. Its full possibilities have still to be realized. The encyclopaedias of the past have sufficed for the needs of a cultivated minority. They were written "for gentlemen by gentlemen" in a world wherein universal education was unthought of, and where the institutions of modern democracy with universal suffrage, so necessary in many respects, so difficult and dangerous in their working, had still to appear. Throughout the nineteenth century encyclopaedias followed the eighteenth-century scale and pattern, in spite both of a gigantic increase in recorded knowledge and of a still more gigantic growth in the numbers of human beings requiring accurate and easily accessible information. At first this disproportion was scarcely noted, and its consequences not at all. But many people now are coming to recognize that our contemporary encyclopaedias are still in the coach-and-horses phase of development, rather than in the phase of the automobile and the aeroplane. Encyclopaedic enterprise has not kept pace with material progress. These observers realize that modern facilities of transport, radio, photographic reproduction and so forth are rendering practicable a much more fully succinct and accessible assembly of fact and ideas than was ever possible before.
Concurrently with these realizations there is a growing discontent with the part played by the universities, schools and libraries in the intellectual life of mankind. Universities multiply, schools of every grade and type increase, but they do not enlarge their scope to anything like the urgent demands of this troubled and dangerous age. They do not perform the task nor exercise the authority that might reasonably be attributed to the thought and knowledge organization of the world. It is not, as it should be, a case of larger and more powerful universities co-operating more and more intimately, but of many more universities of the old type, mostly ill-endowed and uncertainly endowed, keeping at the old educational level.
Both the assembling and the distribution of knowledge in the world at present are extremely ineffective, and thinkers of the forward-looking type whose ideas we are now considering, are beginning to realize that the most hopeful line for the development of our racial intelligence lies rather in the direction of creating a new world organ for the collection, indexing, summarizing and release of knowledge, than in any further tinkering with the highly conservative and resistant university system, local, national and traditional in texture, which already exists. These innovators, who may be dreamers today, but who hope to become very active organizers tomorrow, project a unified, if not a centralized, world organ to "pull the mind of the world together", which will be not so much a rival to the universities, as a supplementary and co-ordinating addition to their educational activities - on a planetary scale.
The phrase "Permanent World Encyclopaedia" conveys the gist of these ideas. As the core of such an institution would be a world synthesis of bibliography and documentation with the indexed archives of the world. A great number of workers would be engaged perpetually in perfecting this index of human knowledge and keeping it up to date. Concurrently, the resources of micro-photography, as yet only in their infancy, will be creating a concentrated visual record.
Few people as yet, outside the world of expert librarians and museum curators and so forth, know how manageable well-ordered facts can be made, however multitudinous, and how swiftly and completely even the rarest visions and the most recondite matters can be recalled, once they have been put in place in a well-ordered scheme of reference and reproduction. The American microfilm experts, even now, are making facsimiles of the rarest books, manuscripts, pictures and specimens, which can then be made easily accessible upon the library srceen. By means of the microfilm, the rarest and most intricate documents and articles can be studied now at first hand, simultaneously in a score of projection rooms. There is no practical obstacle whatever now to the creation of an efficient index to all human knowledge, ideas and achievements, to the creation, that is, of a complete planetary memory for all mankind. And not simply an index; the direct reproduction of the thing itself can be summoned to any properly prepared spot. A microfilm, coloured where necessary, occupying an inch or so of space and weighing little more than a letter, can be duplicated from the records and sent anywhere, and thrown enlarged upon the screen so that the student may study it in every detail.
This in itself is a fact of tremendous significance. It foreshadows a real intellectual unification of our race. The whole human memory can be, and probably in a short time will be, made accessible to every individual. And what is also of very great importance in this uncertain world where destruction becomes continually more frequent and unpredictable, is this, that photography affords now every facility for multiplying duplicates of this - which we may call? - this new all-human cerebrum. It need not be concentrated in any one single place. It need not be vulnerable as a human head or a human heart is vulnerable. It can be reproduced exactly and fully, in Peru, China, Iceland, Central Africa, or wherever else seems to afford an insurance against danger and interruption. It can have at once, the concentration of a craniate animal and the diffused vitality of an amoeba.
This is no remote dream, no fantasy. It is a plain statement of a contemporary state of affairs. It is on the level of practicable fact. It is a matter of such manifest importance and desirability for science, for the practical needs of mankind, for general education and the like, that it is difficult not to believe that in quite the near future, this Permanent World Encyclopaedia, so compact in its material form and so gigantic in its scope and possible influence, will not come into existence.
Its uses will be multiple and many of them will be fairly obvious. Special sections of it, historical, technical, scientific, artistic, e.g. will easily be reproduced for specific professional use. Based upon it, a series of summaries of greater or less fullness and simplicity, for the homes and studies of ordinary people, for the college and the school, can be continually issued and revised. In the hands of competent editors, educational directors and teachers, these condensations and abstracts incorporated in the world educational system, will supply the humanity of the days before us, with a common understanding and the conception of a common purpose and of a commonweal such as now we hardly dare dream of. And its creation is a way to world peace that can be followed without any very grave risk of collision with the warring political forces and the vested institutional interests of today. Quietly and sanely this new encyclopaedia will, not so much overcome these archaic discords, as deprive them, steadily but imperceptibly, of their present reality. A common ideology based on this Permanent World Encyclopaedia is a possible means, to some it seems the only means, of dissolving human conflict into unity.
This concisely is the sober, practical but essentially colossal objective of those who are seeking to synthesize human mentality today, through this natural and reasonable development of encyclopaedism into a Permanent World Encyclopaedia.
What exactly is the Wellsian World Brain or World Encyclopaedia ideas to which reference is so often made? What did they mean for Wells? What might they mean for us? This paper examines closely what Wells says about it in his book, World Brain (1938), and in a number of works that elaborate what is expressed there. The paper discusses aspects of the context within which Wells’s conception of a new world encyclopaedia organisation was formulated and its role in the main thrust of his thought. The paper argues that Wells’s ideas about a World Brain are embedded in a structure of thought that may be shown to entail on the one hand notions of social repression and control that must give us pause, and on the other ideas about the nature and organisation of knowledge that may well be no longer acceptable. By examining Wells’s World Brain ideas in some detail and attempting to articulate the systems of belief which shaped them and which otherwise lie silent beneath them, the author hopes to provoke questions about current ideas about the nature of global information systems and emergent intelligence.
In 1938, aged 72, H.G. Wells published in American and English editions his little book of essays and speeches titled, World Brain. At this time of his life, Wells was an internationally famous literary figure. His books, fiction and nonfiction alike, were popular and widely translated. He had access to the leading statesman of his day. Though World Brain marked an important stage in his writing, it was by no means the last of his books. His voluminous output of fiction, social criticism, and journalism continued up to the year of his death in 1946.
Despite the great length of his career, Wells is perhaps best known today for a group of novels of science fiction that appeared in the last years of the nineteenth century and of social realism that appeared early in the twentieth, though his first book was a textbook of biology that went through numerous editions (Wells, 1893 and, e.g., 1929). This work reflected his years as biology student and disciple of T.H. Huxley at what later became Imperial College of Science and Technology (Wells, 1934a, pp.159-165).
Wells was utopian social reformer. He was intrigued by socialism and was caught up for a time before the First World War with Beatrice and Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw and others in the Fabian Society. After the War he became increasingly and passionately dedicated to the idea that a new kind of world order was needed. In this connection he witnessed the rise of the fascism and the Russian communist State with a curious ambivalence. As contemptuously critical as he was, especially of the fascist dictators, he seemed on occasion to suggest that their totalitarian regimes represented stages in the evolution of the new kind of single, unified World State that he believed was an inevitable (Wells 1933, p. 123-128; 1934, pp.215-216; 1940-41, pp.1170-73, ch.40).
Wells was also a great autodidact and populariser of contemporary knowledge. His Outline of History (Wells 1919), Work Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (Wells, 1931b), and the Science of Life (Wells, Huxley and Wells 1931), the last prepared collaboratively with his son Gyp and Julian Huxley, T.H. Huxley’s grandson and himself a distinguished biologist, represent quite extraordinary feats of comprehensive, intelligible, plainly written synthesis.
The ideas that Wells finally pulled together in World Brain had a long gestation in his earlier writing and were profoundly important to him. They focused, as we will see, important aspects of his thinking about evolution, social reform, and world organisation. The book was, and continues to be, influential. World Brain, has been reprinted twice in the last twenty five years or so (Wells, 1971; 1994). Alan Mayne’s 1994 edition, contains a comprehensive but by no means complete bibliography of more than 200 items about the World Brain and related matters. Mayne’s introductory essay, almost half as long as Wells’s text, suggests in some detail what today needs to be done in order to achieve finally what Well’s had proposed more than half a century ago (Mayne, 1994).
Information scientists and others concerned with the creation of systems for the organisation, communication and retrieval of information constitute one group who continue to be inspired by Wells (Davis, 1937, 1965; Kochen, 1965,1967, 1972, 1975’ Garfield, e.g. 1964, 1964a, 1967, 1968, 1975, 1976; case, 1977; Lesk 1997; Petersen 1996; Shenk,1997). The World Brain or Global Brain trope also seems to be widely employed by those who speculate about the nature and impacts of the contemporary global communications infrastructure and its future development. Their focus is the Internet and the World Wide Web, from which they believe an "actual" global mind is emerging. The members of the Principia Cybernetic Group are very much concerned with these notions (1). Sometimes their work refers to Wells, but on the whole it does not (Judge, 1980, Goetzel, 1998; Heylighen 1996, 1997; Mayer-Kress 1995a, b,).
Perhaps part of the brain image’s contemporary seductiveness lies in the way in which it seems to permit an imperceptible modulation of description and analysis from the metaphorical to the material and back again. Most current invocations of Wells’s ideas about a World Brain, however, can be described as superficial, selective and nearly always en passant. The references to it are essentially incantatory. Almost casually, for example, the distinguished information scientist, Michael Lesk, recently concluded a paper disseminated on the Web with the observation that current trends suggest that "there will be enough disk space and tape storage in the world to store everything people write, say, perform, or photograph. For writing this is true already; for others it is only a year or two away." Lesk does not question the desirability of this appalling prospect, but concludes that we are now on the verge of realising that "brain" organisation that Wells envisioned. "We could build a real ‘World Encyclopedia’ with a true ‘planetary memory for all mankind’ as Wells wrote in 1938’", Lesk observed. He mentions that Wells had talked of "knitting all the intellectual workers of the world through a common interest." "We could do it," says Lesk (Lesk, 1997, p.5). But would we want to do it?
By examining Wells’s World Brain ideas in some detail and attempting to articulate the systems of belief which shaped them and which otherwise lie silent beneath them, I hope to provoke - though I do not attempt to answer - questions about current ideas of the nature of global information systems and emergent intelligence. Implicit in the concept of "Brain" is some notion of central direction and control that is exercised over some thing both consciously as a matter of intelligence and informed judgement and automatically. How do proposals for the World or Global Brain encompass these notions? Of what, for example, is the World or Global Brain a part — what is its body? How does it manifest intelligence and informed judgement? How do the systems which constitute the "World Brain" require individuals to discipline their interests and behaviour, to configure themselves in conformity with these systems. To what extent is the independence and initiative of both individuals and particular groups threatened in a social and political regime ordered by current conceptions of a global brain? To what extent is what is designed a conscious or unconscious reflection of the prejudices, the idiosyncrasies, the cognitive and imaginative limitations of the system designers or those who have commissioned and paid for such systems? To what extent are these systems necessarily an embodiment of the cultural circumstances of time and place, the reflection of a particular world view? How might an "emergent" intelligence transcend these limitations?
The argument of this paper is that Wells’s ideas about a World Brain, as startling and resonant as they seem to be, are nevertheless embedded in a structure of thought that may be shown to entail on the one hand notions of social repression and control that must give us pause, and on the other ideas about the nature and organisation of knowledge that may well be no longer acceptable. I ask: what exactly is the Wellsian World Brain or World Encyclopaedia ideas to which reference is so often made? With what social and political institutions are the texts which present Wells World Brain ideas articulated? What tacit temporally and culturally situated codes of ethics do they entail? How are World brain ideas underpinned by, or an expression of, Wells’s fundamental beliefs about mankind, government and society?
I examine closely what Wells says about the World Brain in his book of that name and in a number of works that elaborate what is expressed there. Moving beyond these descriptive limitations, I try to better understand aspects of the context within which Wells’s conception of a new world encyclopaedia organisation was formulated and its role in the main thrust of his thought.
I argue that attempting to unravel the nature and structure of these beliefs will not only affect our attitudes towards his World Brain ideas. They should influence our assessment of their continuing relevance, though to undertake that assessment is not the purpose of this paper beyond highlighting the issues of power and control, the "political-social" problematic that modern proposals for a World or Global Brain necessarily raise.
A Note on Method
Amazingly H.G. Wells did not win any literary awards.
TEXT-BOOK OF BIOLOGY, 1892-93
HONOURS PHYSIOGRAPHY, 1893
THE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS, 1894 - Voimakoneitten herra ja muita tapauksia (suom. Väinö Hämeen- Anttila)
THE STOLEN BACILLUS AND OTHER STORIES, 1895 - Varastettu basilli ja muita kertomuksia (suom. Väinö Hämeen-Anttila)
THE TIME MACHINE, 1895 - Aikakone (suom.: Lyyli Vihervaara; Matti Kannosto; Tero Valkonen) - film 1960, dir, by George Pal; film 2002, dir. by Simon Wells, starring Guy Pearce, Samantha Mumba, Mark Addy, Phylidda Law, Orlando Jones and Jeremy Irons
THE WONDERFUL VISIT, 1895
SELECT CONVERSATIONS WITH AN UNCLE, 1895
THE RED ROOM, 1896 - Punainen huone (suom. Matti Rosvall)
THE WHEELS OF CHANGE, 1896
THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU, 1896 - Kauhun saari (suom. Teppo Heino) / Tohtori Moreaun saari (suom. Markku Salo) - film 1932, dir. by Erle C. Kenton; film 1977, dir. by Don Taylor; film 1996, dir. by John Frankenheimer, starring Burt Lancaster, Michael York, Nigel Davenport
THE INVISIBLE MAN, 1897 - Näkymätön mies (suom.: Tapio Hiisivaara; Aino Tuomikoski) - film 1934, dir. by James Whale, starring Claude Rains
THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS, 1897 - Hämähäkkilaakso ja muita kertomuksia (suom. Werner Anttila)
THE PLATTNER STORY, 1897
THIRTY STRANGE STORIES, 1897
CERTAIN PERSONAL MATTERS, 1897
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, 1898 - Maailmojen sota (suom. Matti Kannosto) - Orson Welles's radio dramatization of it in October 1938 caused widespread panic in the U.S. In Byron Haskin's film from 1953 the alien ship attacks Los Angeles. 'Haskin admits that the film was a war picture even without the Martian shots: "if Russia and the United States had started hostilities, you could have substituted the Russian invasion and have had a hell of a war film. "' (from Novels into Film by John C. Tibbets and James M. Welsh, 1999). Roland Emmerich's film Independence day (1996) sticks closely to the plot of Well's story. Film 2005, dir. by Steven Spielberg, screenplay by David Koepp, starring Tom Cruise, Justin Chatwin, Dakota Fanning, Tom Robbins. Spielberg's film is set in New Jersey today.
TALES OF SPACE AND TIME, 1899
WHEN THE SLEEPER WAKES, 1899 - Kun nukkuja herää (suom. Jalmari Finne; Tero Valkonen)
A CURE FOR LOVE, 1899
TALES OF SPACE AND TIME, 1899
THE VACANT COUNTRY, 1899
LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM, 1900
ANTICIPATIONS, 1901
THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON, 1901 - Ensimmäiset ihmiset Kuussa (suom. S. Samuli)
ANTICIPATIONS OF THE REACTIONS OF MECHANICAL AND SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS UPON HUMAN LIFE AND THOUGHT, 1901
THE DISCOVERY OF THE FUTURE, 1902
THE SEA LADY, 1902
TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM, 1903
MANKIND IN THE MAKING, 1903
THE FOOD OF GODS, 1904
A MODERN UTOPIA, 1905 - Nykyaikainen Utopia (suom. Ville-Juhani Sutinen)
KIPPS: THE STORY OF A SIMPLE SOUL, 1905 - Kipps esiintyy seurapiireissä (suom. Ahti M. Salonen) - film 1941, dir. by Carol Reed
IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET, 1906
SOCIALISM AND THE FAMILY, 1906
FAULTS OF THE FABIAN, 1906
THE FUTURE IN AMERICA, 1906
RECONSTRUCTION OF THE FABIAN SOCIETY, 1906
WILL SOCIALISM DESTROY THE HOME?, 1907
THIS MISERY OF BOOTS, 1907
TONO-BUNGAY, 1908
THE WAR IN THE AIR, 1908 - Ilmasota (suom. Toivo Wallenius)
FIRST AND LAST THINGS, 1908
NEW WORLDS FOR OLD, 1908 - Uusia maailmoita vanhojen sijaan (suom. J. Hollo)
ANN VERONICA, 1909
THE HISTORY OF MR. POLLY, 1910 - film 1948, dir. by Anthony Pelissier
THE NEW MACHIAVELLI, 1911
THE H.G. WELLS CALENDAR, 1911
THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND, 1911
THE DOOR IN THE WALL, 1911
MARRIAGE, 1912
THE GREAT STATE, 1912 (ed. with G.R.S. Taylor and Frances Evelyn Warwick)
KIPPS, 1912 (play, with Rudolf Besier)
GREAT THOUGHTS FROM H.G. WELLS, 1912
FLOOR GAMES, 1912
THE LABOUR UNREST, 1912
LIBERALISM AND ITS PARTY, 1913
LITTLE WARS, 1913
WAR AND COMMON SENSE, 1913
THOUGHTS FROM H.G. WELLS, 1913
THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS, 1913
THE STAR, 1913
THE WIFE OF SIR ISAAC HARMAN, 1914
THE WORLD SET FREE, 1914
AN ENGLISHMAN LOOKS AT THE WORLD, 1914
THE WAR THAT WILL END WAR, 1914
BOON, 1915
THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT, 1915
BEALBY, 1915
THE PEACE OF THE WORLD, 1915
THE ELEMENTS OF RECONSTRUCTION, 1916
WHAT IS COMING?, 1916
MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH, 1916 - Mr. Britling pääsee selvyyteen
GOD THE INVISIBLE KING, 1917 - Kuninkaitten kuningas (suom. Eino Palola)
THE SOUL OF A BISHOP, 1917
GOD THE INVISIBLE KING, 1917
INTRODUCTION TO NOCTURNE, 1917
A REASONABLE MAN'S PEACE, 1917
WAR AND THE FUTURE, 1917
BRITISH NATIONALISM AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, 1918
IN THE FOURTH YEAR, 1918
JOAN AND PETER, 1918
HE UNDYING FIRE, 1919 - Ikuinen liekki (suom. Susanna Hirvikorpi)
HISTORY IS ONE, 1919
THE IDEA OF A LEAGUE OF NATIONS, 1919 (with others)
THE WAY TO THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, 1919 (with others)
THE OUTLINE OF HISTORY, 1920; rev. ed. 1931 (see also Raymond Postgate) - Historian ääriviivat
FRANK SWINNERTON, 1920
RUSSIA IN THE SHADOWS, 1920
THE NEW TEACHING OF HISTORY, 1921
THE SALVAGING OF CIVILIZATION, 1921
THE WONDERFUL VISIT, 1921 (play, with St. John Ervine)
THE SECRET PLACES OF THE HEART, 1922
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD, 1922
WASHINGTON AND THE HOPE OF PEACE, 1922
THE WORLD, ITS DEBTS, AND THE RICH MEN, 1922
SOCIALISM AND THE SCIENTIFIC MOTIVE, 1923
contributor: THIRTY-ONE STORIES BY THIRTY AND ONE AUTHORS, 1923
MEN LIKE GODS, 1923
TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED, 1922-23
THE DREAM, 1924 - Uni (suom. Väinö Nyman)
THE P.R. PARLIAMENT, 1924
THE STORY OF A GREAT SCHOOLMASTER, 1924
WORKS, 1924 (28 vols.)
A YEAR OF PROPHESYING, 1924
A FORECAST OF THE WORLD'S AFFAIR, 1925
A SHORT HISTORY OF MANKIND, 1925
CHRISTINA ALBERTA'S FATHER, 1925
THE WORLD OF WILLIAM CLISSOLD, 1926
MR. BELLOC OBJECTS TO "THE OUTLINE OF HISTORY", 1926
WORKS, 1926-27 (24 vols.)
IN MEMORY OF AMY CATHERINE WELLS, 1927
WELLS' SOCIAL ANTICIPATIONS, 1927
MEANWHILE, 1927
DEMOCRACY UNDER REVISION, 1927
THE SHORT STORIES OF H.G. WELLS, 1927
MR. BLETTSWORTHY ON RAMPOLE ISLAND, 1928
H.G. WELLS COMEDIES, 1928 (plays, with Frank Wells)
THE OPEN CONSPIRACY, 1928
THE WAY THE WORLD IS GOING, 1928 THE COMMON SENSE OF WORLD PEACE, 1929
IMPERIALISM AND THE OPEN CONSPIRACY, 1929
THE KING WHO WAS A KING, 1929
THE ADVENTURES OF TOMMY, 1929
THE SCIENCE OF LIFE, 1929-30 - Elämän ihmeet (suom. Aarno Jalas)
THE AUTOCRACY OF MR. PARHAM, 1930
DIVORCE AS I SEE IT, 1930 (with others)
POINTS OF VIEW, 1930 (with others)
THE PROBLEM OF THE TROUBLESOME COLLABORATOR, 1930
THE SCIENCE OF LIFE, 1930 (with Julian S. Huxley and G.P. Wells)
SETTLEMENT OF THE TROUBLE BETWEEN MT. THRING AND MR. WELLS, 1930
THE WAY TO WORLD PEACE, 1930
THE WORK, WEALTH AND HAPPINESS OF MANKIND, 1931
THE STOLEN BODY, 1931
THE NEW RUSSIA, 1931
SELECTIONS FROM THE EARLY PROSE WORKS OF H.G. WELLS, 1931
THE WORK, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS OF MANKIND, 1931-32
THE BULPINGTON OF BLUP, 1932
AFTER DEMOCRACY, 1932
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME, 1933
EXPERIMENT IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 1934
STALIN-WELLS TALK, 1934
THE NEW AMERICA, 1935
THINGS TO COME: A FILM STORY BASED ON THE MATERIAL CONTAINED IN HIS HISTORY OF THE FUTURE "THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME", 1935 - film 1936, directed by William Cameron Menzies, adapted by H.G. Wells . "The book, unlike the film, does not end on a note of risk taking and space exploration; it is more interested in establishing the importance of the confluence of wills over the importance of individuals." (from Novels into Film by John C. Tibbetts and James M. Welsh, 1999)
THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES: A FILM STORY, 1936
IDEA OF A WORLD ENCYCLOPEDIA, 1936
THE ANATOMY OF FRUSTRATION, 1936
THE CROQUET PLAYER, 1937
BRYNHILD, 1937
THE CAMFORD VISITATION, 1937
STAR BEGOTTEN, 1937
THE FAVORITE SHORT STORIES OF H.G. WELLS, 1937
WORLD BRAIN, 1938
APROPOS OF DOLORES, 1938
THE BROTHERS, 1938
THE HOLY TERROR, 1939
THE FATE OF HOMO SAPIENS, 1939
TRAVELS OF A REPUBLICAN RADICAL IN SEARCH OF HOT WATER, 1939
ALL ABOARD FOR ARARAT, 1940
BABES IN THE DARKLING WOOD, 1940
TWO HEMISPHERES OR ONE WORLD?, 1940
SHORT STORIES BY H.G. WELLS, 1940
THE COMMON SENSE OF WAR AND PEACE, 1940
H.G. WELLS, S. DE MADARIAGA, J. MIDDLETON MURRY, C.E.M. JOAD ON THE NEW WORLD ORDER, 1940
THE NEW WORLD READER, 1940
THE RIGHTS OF MAN, 1940
YOU CAN'T BE TOO CAREFUL: A SAMPLE OF LIFE 1901-1951, 1941
GUIDE TO THE NEW WORLD, 1941
THE POCKET HISTORY OF THE WORLD, 1941
THE CONQUEST OF TIME, 1942
MODERN RUSSIAN END ENGLISH REVOLUTIONARIES, 1942
THE NEW RIGHTS OF MAN, 1942
THE OUTLOOK FOR HOMO SAPIENS, 1942
PHOENIX, 1942
SCIENCE AND WORLD-MIND, 1942
A THESIS ON THE QUALITY OF ILLUSION, 1942
THE EMPIRE OF THE ANTS, 1943
THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST, 1943
THE LAND IRONCLADS, 1943
THE NEW ACCELERATOR, 1943
THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT, 1943
CRUX ANSATA, 1943
THE MOSLEY OUTRAGE, 1943
'42 TO '44, 1944
RESHAPING MAN'S HERITAGE, 1944 (with J.S. Huxley and J.B.S. Haldane) )
THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST AND THE NEW ACCELERATOR, 1944
MIND AT THE END OF ITS TETHER, 1945
MIND AT THE END OF ITS TETHER, AND THE HAPPY TURNING, 1945
THE HAPPY TURNING: A DREAM OF LIFE, 1945
MARXISM VS. LIBERALISM, 1945
TWENTY-EIGHT SCIENCE FICTION STORIES, 1952
SEVEN STORIES, 1953
THE DESERT DAISY, 1957
THE H.G. WELLS PAPERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, 1958 (ed. by Gordon N. Ray)
SELECTED SHORT STORIES, 1958
HENRY JAMES AND H.G. WELLS, 1958
ARNOLD BENNET AND H.G. WELLS, 1960
GEORGE GISSING AND H.G. WELLS, 1961
JOURNALISM AND PROPHECY 1893-1946 (ed. by W. Warren Wagar), 1964
HOOPDRIVER'S HOLIDAY, 1964 (play, adaptation of the novel The Wheels of Change)
THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS, 1964
THE CONE, 1965
THE INEXPERIENCED GHOST, AND NINE OTHER STORIES, 1965
THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION STORIES OF H.G. WELLS, 1966
contributor: MASTERPIECES OF SCIENCE FICTION, 1967
THE WEALTH OF MR. WADDY, 1969
A STORY OF THE DAYS TO COME, 1976
H.G. WELLS'S LITERARY CRITICISM, 1980
H.G. WELLS IN LOVE: A POSTSCRIPT TO AN EXPERIMENT IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 1984
THE MAN WITH A NOSE, 1984
TREASURY OF H.G. WELLS, 1985
H.G. WELLS SCIENCE FICTION TREASURY, 1987
THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF H.G. WELLS, 1987
THE DISCOVERY OF THE FUTURE, WITH THE COMMON-SENSE OF WORLD PEACE AND THE HUMAN ADVENTURE, 1989
BERNARD SHAW AND H.G. WELLS, 1995 (ed. by J. Percy Smith)
1. The History of Mr Polly (2007) (TV) (novel)
2. Overlap (2006) (story "The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes")
3. War of the Worlds (2005) (V) (novel)
... aka H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds (USA: complete title)
... aka Invasion (UK: cable TV title)
4. The War of the Worlds (2005) (novel)
... aka Classic War of the Worlds (International: English title: recut version)
... aka H.G. Wells' 'The War of the Worlds' (USA: complete title)
5. War of the Worlds (2005) (novel)
6. The Erotic Time Machine (2002) (V) (novel) (uncredited)
7. The Time Machine (2002) (novel)
8. "The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells" (2001) TV mini-series (short stories)
9. "The Invisible Man" (1 episode, 2000)
... aka "I-Man" (USA: second season title)
- Pilot (2000) TV episode (book "Invisible Man")
10. Things 3: Old Things (1998) (V) (story "The Crystal Egg") (segment "Crystal Glazing")
... aka Dead Time Tales (USA: new title)
11. The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) (novel "The Island of Dr. Moreau")
12. Volshebnaya lavka (1992) (TV) (story "The Magic Shop")
13. Time Machine (1992) (novel)
14. "War of the Worlds" (1988) TV series (unknown episodes)
... aka "War of the Worlds: The Second Invasion" (USA: second season title)
15. "The Invisible Man" (6 episodes, 1984)
- The Hunting of the Invisible Man (1984) TV episode (novel)
- Certain First Principles (1984) TV episode (novel)
- Dr. Kemp's Visitor (1984) TV episode (novel)
- Mr. Marvel's Visit to Iping (1984) TV episode (novel)
- The Unveiling of the Stranger (1984) TV episode (novel)
(1 more)
16. Chelovek-nevidimka (1984) (novel "The Invisible Man")
... aka Человек-невидимка (Soviet Union: Russian title)
... aka The Invisible Man
17. The Magic Shop (1982) (short story)
18. "The History of Mr. Polly" (4 episodes, 1980)
- Episode #1.4 (1980) TV episode (novel)
- Episode #1.3 (1980) TV episode (novel)
- Episode #1.2 (1980) TV episode (novel)
- Episode #1.1 (1980) TV episode (novel)
19. The Shape of Things to Come (1979) (novel)
... aka H.G. Wells' The Shape of Things to Come (USA: complete title)
20. The Time Machine (1978) (TV) (novel "The Time Machine")
21. The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) (novel)
22. Empire of the Ants (1977) (novel "Empire of the Ants")
... aka H.G. Wells' Empire of the Ants (USA: complete title)
23. "Gemini Man" (1976) TV series (unknown episodes)
24. The Food of the Gods (1976) (novel)
... aka H.G. Wells' Food of the Gods
25. Gemini Man (1976) (TV) (novel)
... aka Code Name: Minus One (syndication title)
26. Das Land der Blinden oder Von einem der auszog (1976) (TV) (story)
27. Riding with Death (1976) (TV) (novel "The Invisible Man") (uncredited)
28. "The Invisible Man" (1 episode, 1975)
- The Invisible Man (1975) TV episode (novel "The Invisible Man")
29. La merveilleuse visite (1974) (novel "The Wonderful Visit")
... aka La meravigliosa visita (Italy)
... aka The Marvelous Visit (International: English title)
30. The Twilight People (1973) (novel "Island of Dr. Moreau") (uncredited)
... aka Beasts
... aka Island of the Twilight People
31. "Love and Mr Lewisham" (4 episodes, 1972)
- Part 4 (1972) TV episode (novel)
- Part 3 (1972) TV episode (novel)
- Part 2 (1972) TV episode (novel)
- Part 1 (1972) TV episode (novel)
32. The Island of Doctor Agor (1971) (story "The Island of Doctor Moreau")
33. Dan-dan han changugi gyo in (1970) (novel "Food of the Gods")
34. Half a Sixpence (1967) (novel "Kipps")
35. "BBC Play of the Month" (1 episode, 1966)
- Days to Come (1966) TV episode (story)
36. Village of the Giants (1965) (novel "The Food of the Gods")
37. First Men in the Moon (1964) (story)
... aka H.G. Wells' First Men in the Moon (UK: complete title)
38. Ann Veronica (1964) (TV) (novel)
39. "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" (1 episode, 1964)
- The Magic Shop (1964) TV episode (story)
40. "Suspense" (1 episode, 1963)
- One Step from the Pavement (1963) TV episode (short story "The Magic Shop")
41. "The DuPont Show of the Week" (1 episode, 1962)
- The Richest Man in Bogota (1962) TV episode (short story "In the Country of the Blind")
42. "Kipps" (8 episodes, 1960)
- Episode #1.8 (1960) TV episode (novel)
- Episode #1.7 (1960) TV episode (novel)
- Episode #1.6 (1960) TV episode (novel)
- Episode #1.5 (1960) TV episode (novel)
- Episode #1.4 (1960) TV episode (novel)
(3 more)
43. The Time Machine (1960) (novel)
... aka H.G. Wells' The Time Machine (UK: complete title) (USA: complete title)
44. "Invisible Man" (24 episodes, 1959)
... aka "H.G.Wells' Invisible Man" (UK: complete title)
... aka "Invisible Man: The Original Series" (Australia)
- The Big Plot (1959) TV episode (novel)
- Shadow Bomb (1959) TV episode (novel)
- The Rocket (1959) TV episode (novel)
- Man in Power (1959) TV episode (novel)
- The White Rabbit (1959) TV episode (novel)
(19 more)
45. Terror Is a Man (1959) (uncredited) (novel "The Island of Dr. Moreau")
... aka Blood Creature (USA: reissue title)
... aka Creature from Blood Island
... aka The Gory Creatures
46. "The History of Mr Polly" (6 episodes, 1959)
- Episode #1.6 (1959) TV episode (novel)
- Episode #1.5 (1959) TV episode (novel)
- Episode #1.4 (1959) TV episode (novel)
- Episode #1.3 (1959) TV episode (novel)
- Episode #1.2 (1959) TV episode (novel)
(1 more)
47. "Love and Mr Lewisham" (6 episodes, 1959)
- Part 6 (1959) TV episode (novel)
- Part 5 (1959) TV episode (novel)
- Part 4 (1959) TV episode (novel)
- Part 3 (1959) TV episode (novel)
- Part 2 (1959) TV episode (novel)
(1 more)
48. "Armchair Theatre" (1 episode, 1957)
... aka "Armpit Theatre" (UK: informal title)
- Ann Veronica (1957) TV episode (novel)
49. The Door in the Wall (1956) (short story)
50. "Matinee Theatre" (1955) TV series (unknown episodes)
51. Görünmeyen adam Istanbul'da (1955) (novel "The Invisible Man")
... aka The Invisible Man in Istanbul
52. "Your Favorite Story" (1 episode, 1954)
- The Bedford House Conspiracy (1954) TV episode (short story "In the Country of the Blind")
53. The War of the Worlds (1953) (novel)
54. "BBC Sunday-Night Theatre" (4 episodes, 1950-1952)
- Ann Veronica (1952) TV episode (novel)
- Love and Mr. Lewisham (1952) TV episode (novel)
- The Wonderful Visit (1952) TV episode (original story)
- The History of Mr. Polly (1950) TV episode (novel)
55. "Tales of Tomorrow" (1 episode, 1951)
- The Crystal Egg (1951) TV episode (story)
56. Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) (story "The Invisible Man")
... aka Meet the Invisible Man
57. The History of Mr. Polly (1949) (story)
58. The Passionate Friends (1949) (novel)
... aka One Woman's Story (USA)
59. The Time Machine (1949) (TV) (story)
60. "Actor's Studio" (1 episode, 1948)
... aka "The Play's the Thing" (USA: last season title)
- The Inexperienced Ghost (1948) TV episode (story)
61. Dead of Night (1945) (story) (segment "Golfing Story")
62. The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944) (characters)
63. Invisible Agent (1942) (novel "The Invisible Man")
64. Kipps (1941) (novel)
... aka The Remarkable Mr. Kipps (USA)
65. The Invisible Man Returns (1940) (characters)
66. The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1936) (book) (writer)
67. Things to Come (1936) (novel "The Shape of Things to Come") (screenplay)
... aka H.G. Wells' Things to Come (UK: complete title)
68. The Invisible Man (1933) (novel)
69. Island of Lost Souls (1932) (novel "The Island of Dr. Moreau")
70. Daydreams (1928) (story)
71. Blue Bottles (1928) (story)
72. The Tonic (1928) (story)
73. H.G. Wells Comedies (1928) (stories)
74. Marriage (1927) (novel)
75. The Wheels of Chance (1922) (novel)
76. The Passionate Friends (1922) (novel)
77. Die Insel der Verschollenen (1921) (novel "The Island of Dr. Moreau")
... aka The Island of the Lost (USA)
78. Kipps (1921) (novel)
79. The First Men in the Moon (1919) (novel)
80. Il giustiziere invisibile (1916) (novel)
81. Le voyage dans la lune (1902) (novel "First Men in the Moon") (uncredited)
... aka A Trip to Mars (USA: copyright title)
... aka A Trip to the Moon
... aka Voyage to the Moon
Aepyornis Island
The Cone
The Country of the Blind
The Diamond Maker
The Door in the Wall
A Dream of Armageddon
Filmer
Jimmy Goggles the God
The Lord of the Dynamos
The Magic Shop
Miss Winchelsea's Heart
A Moonlight Fable
Mr. Brisher's Treasure
Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation
Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland
The New Accelerator
The Star
The Stolen Body
The Story of the Inexperienced Ghost
The Truth about Pyecraft
The Valley of Spiders
The Jilting of Jane
The Stolen Bacillus
The Flowering of the Strange Orchid
In the Avu Observatory
The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes
The Moth
The Treasure in the Forest
The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham
Under the Knife
The Sea Raiders
The Obliterated Man
The Plattner Story
The Red Room
The Purple Pileus
A Slip Under the Microscope
The Crystal Egg
The Man Who Could Work Miracles
A Vision of Judgment
The Empire of the Ants
The Beautiful Suit
The Triumphs of a Taxidermist
A Deal in Ostriches
A Modern Utopia
An Englishman Looks at the World
Certain Personal Matters
God The Invisible King
Ann Veronica
In the Days of the Comet
Love and Mr. Lewisham
Mr. Britling Sees It Through
The First Men in the Moon
The Food of the Gods
The History of Mr. Polly
The Invisible Man
The Island of Doctor Moreau
The New Machiavelli
The Research Magnificent
The Secret Places of the Heart
The Soul of a Bishop
The Time Machine
The War in the Air
The War of the Worlds
The Wheels of Chance
The World Set Free
Tono Bungay
When the Sleeper Wakes
The English author Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) began his career as a novelist with a popular sequence of science fiction that remains the most familiar part of his work. He later wrote realistic novels and novels of ideas.
On Sept. 21, 1866, H. G. Wells was born in Bromley, Kent. His origins were lower middle class, his father being a semiprofessional cricket player and his mother an intermittent housekeeper. At the age of 7 Wells entered Morley's School in Bromley, leaving at the age of 14, when he became apprenticed to a draper. He rebelled against this fate in 1883. After a year of teaching at a private school, he won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science at South Kensington in 1884, where he studied under the biologist T. H. Huxley. Wells left Kensington without a degree in 1887, returning to teaching in private schools for three years. He received a degree in science from the University of London in 1890.
Wells began teaching at a correspondence college in London in 1891 after his marriage to his cousin Isabel. The marriage was both difficult and brief. In the same year he published his article "The Rediscovery of the Unique" in the Fortnightly Review. After three years of writing on educational topics, he published his first novel, The Time Machine. Divorcing his first wife, Wells remarried in 1895 and abandoned teaching. A series of scientific fantasies followed The Time Machine: The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), When the Sleeper Awakes (1898), The First Men in the Moon (1901), and The War in the Air (1908). Wells's involvement with socialism and radicalism had begun in 1884 and continued for the remainder of his life.
Love and Mr. Lewisham (1900), Wells's first nonscience fiction novel, concerned the relationship of men and women and introduced sex as an integral part of that relationship. His semiautobiographical novels continued with Kipps (1905), Tono-Bungay (1909), and The History of Mr. Polly (1910). These novels are considered his greatest achievement.
As his novels indicate, Wells was hostile to the Victorian social and moral orders. His criticism became explicit as his involvement with radical causes grew. Wells as prophet wrote Anticipations (1901), Mankind in the Making (1903), and A Modern Utopia (1905). He joined the Fabian Society, a socialist group that included George Bernard Shaw and Sydney Webb, in 1903; after an unsuccessful attempt four years later to turn Fabianism to mass propaganda and political action, Wells resigned. The New Machiavelli (1911), a novel, was a response to his experience in the society. After The New Machiavelli he began producing dialogue novels that expressed his current preoccupations. His Boon (1915) parodied the late style of Henry James.
Wells became during World War I an expert publicist, particularly in Mr. Britling Sees It Through. Initially believing that the war would end all war, he wrote that "my awakening to the realities of the pseudo-settlement of 1919 was fairly rapid." His solution was what he identified as world education. The intention of The Outline of History (1920) was to "show plainly to the general intelligence, how inevitable, if civilization was to continue, was the growth of political, social, and economic organizations into world federation." After the Outline's appearance, Wells led an increasingly public life, expressing his opinions through syndicated articles. The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution (1928) urged the case for an integrated global civilization.
Experiment in Autobiography (1934) was "an enormous reel of self-justification." Wells continued to average two titles a year. Apropos of Delores (1938) was a hilarious tribute to a former mistress. Mind at the End of Its Tether (1945), his last book, was a vision of the future as nightmare. He died on Aug. 13, 1946, in London.
