HG Wells Author:Richard Hauer Costa H G Wells, whose birth centennial was observed in 1966, was one of this century's most representative, if misunderstood, writers. If, as has been widely asserted, the first third of the century could justly be call "The Age of H. G. Wells," it is equally true that there has been a waning of critical attention devoted to him in the two decades s... more »ince his death. The World-State trumpeter invoking mankind to follow his lead to a promised land has provided a convenient scapegoat for Existentialist voices during and after World War II.
The flaw of much contemporary criticism has been to discard the public Wells- the educator, the publicist, the blue-printer of utopia- without considering the WElls who will endure: the creator of such major comic heros as Kipps, Mr. Polly, and Teddy Ponderevo, and of at least five science-fiction romances, dating from The Time Machine and The War Of The Worlds, which are Swiftian in brilliance.
A major aim of this book is to demonstrate that the teaching and preaching Wells engaged in spiritual conflict with the authentic Wells. The struggle produced a state of war between the public celebrity and the private artist.
H.G. Wells, myth-maker- creator of the Time Traveller and The Invisible Man, prophet of tank, aerial and atomic warfare, of TV, automation and arterials- clamors to be read even as his richly comic creations deserve a new audience.« less