Let’s take a look at the works of HG Wells with this month’s It’s Lit!
A few years ago I read and re-read several of HG Wells’ novels. The thing that I was struck by was just how dry and dull the stories were.
Don’t get me wrong, the concepts, characters, plots, etc, are all good. The problem was how a story would be bookended or be a recounted narrative or some other technique that removed just about any tension or engagement. It was like setting fire to a classic sports car to get insurance money to buy a Toyota Corolla.
But it was a different time. Wells wrote for a different audience. We can forgive him.
Or can we?
One thing not discussed in the video is Wells’ long history of plagiarism. Several of his “big ideas” were lifted straight from other lesser-known authors. The novel that set him up as a professional writer was ripped directly from the unknown Florence Deeks. Not satisfied with having gotten away with the theft, Well’s decided to ruin Deeks.
So in terms of things we didn’t know about Well’s, I think him going against his own socialist values by plagiarising is near the top of the list.
H.G. Wells is a name that is synonymous with the creation of what we now know as science fiction. He effectively invented the subgenre of alien invasion, he coined now-ubiquitous terms “time machine,” “heat ray” and even disputably “the new world order.” But what most people don’t know about Wells is that although today he is predominantly known for his science fiction, his career as an SF author was pretty short.
Wells wrote dozens of novels, most of which weren’t science fiction. But despite the relatively few science fiction works he wrote in comparison to his vast oeuvre, Wells was an influential thinker – not just for the genre of science fiction, but for science’s relationship to the culture at large.
Hosted by Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes, It’s Lit! is a show about our favorite books, genres, and why we love to read. It’s Lit has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.
Tyson Adams 