Experiment in Autobiography

by H.G. Wells

The British author recounts his childhood, education, and career as a journalist and writer, and shares his views on education, religion, marriage, and literature

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Memoir, History, Autobiography, British Literature, 20th Century

718 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1934

About the author

Herbert George Wells was born to a working class family in Kent, England. Young Wells received a spotty education, interrupted by several illnesses and family difficulties, and became a draper's apprentice as a teenager. The headmaster of Midhurst Grammar School, where he had spent a year, arranged for him to return as an "usher," or student teacher. Wells earned a government scholarship in 1884, to study biology under Thomas Henry Huxley at the Normal School of Science. Wells earned his bachelor of science and doctor of science degrees at the University of London. After marrying his cousin, Isabel, Wells began to supplement his teaching salary with short stories and freelance articles, then books, including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898).

Wells created a mild scandal when he divorced his cousin to marry one of his best students, Amy Catherine Robbins. Although his second marriage was lasting and produced two sons, Wells was an unabashed advocate of free (as opposed to "indiscriminate") love. He continued to openly have extra-marital liaisons, most famously with Margaret Sanger, and a ten-year relationship with the author Rebecca West, who had one of his two out-of-wedlock children. A one-time member of the Fabian Society, Wells sought active change. His 100 books included many novels, as well as nonfiction, such as A Modern Utopia (1905), The Outline of History (1920), A Short History of the World (1922), The Shape of Things to Come (1933), and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1932). One of his booklets was Crux Ansata, An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. Although Wells toyed briefly with the idea of a "divine will" in his book, God the Invisible King (1917), it was a temporary aberration. Wells used his international fame to promote his favorite causes, including the prevention of war, and was received by government officials around the world. He is best-remembered as an early writer of science fiction and futurism.

He was also an outspoken socialist. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Fathers of Science Fiction". D. 1946.

More: http://philosopedia.org/index.php/H._...

http://www.online-literature.com/well...

http://www.hgwellsusa.50megs.com/

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was long and a little odd. It's an intellectual biography and ends with rather a lengthy chapter on his political ideas which can get a little woolly. But after reading so much of Wells' fiction over the last year, I was quite delighted by much of it, especially his relationships with other writers and his ideas about fiction writing.

[Jim Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

This good autobiography would have been better if it were 200 pages shorter. Wells' Dickensian childhood is fascinating and his sketches of his contemporary writers (James, Bennet, Conrad, Henley, and Frank Harris) are better than most of the biographies I've read of them. But way too much politics and repetition to keep me riveted for all 700 pages!

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of a man who rejected the concept of religion due to the fact that, in his view, the universe itself was indeterminate. However, in the end he decided to undergo a Christian confirmation since he concluded that, like a sound political theory, the universe has a consistency of temperament. The fact that some deviation from the mean must be accepted in every scientific experiment does nothing to his acceptance of his view which, in some ways, anticipates Chaos theory. While H.G. Wells would eventually go on to achieve fame as an author of fiction, his initial writings were scientific in nature but, as he tells us in his autobiography, they were rejected as being unintelligibly idiosyncratic. Perhaps, like the fiction that would eventually define him, they were simply ahead of their time? In one of his rejected scientific papers, he suggested that, like every person on earth, there is a definite uniqueness in all of the phenomena of nature, from the largest star to the smallest atom. It seems possible that some of his scientific insights may have a bearing on contemporary scientific points of view; this is somewhat startling considering that it comes from a person who is most famous for writing books like The War of the Worlds and The Invisible Man. However, the reader of his autobiography finds this natural for, as he reveals in these pages, learning science was Wells' main ambition, not only in his childhood upbringing but at the universities he attended in early adulthood. According to Wells, the mastery of science's picture of the universe is that it transcends words. While the thorny progress of the scourge of science is crucial to maintain civilization, he states that all reasoned, responsible arguments for a better society must take place within language and, in addition, he says that only those well trained in using words can have a firm handle on the far-reaching consequences of the scientific outlook. Personally, I wholeheartedly agree with this conclusion, as I have always felt that a literary background was essential for disseminating the dispassionate results of science that, arranged as dead quantitative symbols, come alive as authentic prospects only through the work of the scientific writer, a person who is necessary to legitimate these ideas and make these new forms of knowledge meaningful in the social world. Wells died a generation before Thomas Kuhn wrote about the dynamic structure of scientific revolutions but it seems he is arguing, as Kuhn eventually would, that the history of science represents a series of paradigm shifts and that the work of a proselytizer for this viewpoint was necessary in order for this new paradigm to shape the course of human destiny. According to Wells' view of history, science develops a mode of thought though technology, but writing was the ultimate exemplar which conferred the reality of its achievements. My agreement with Welles extends even further, in that I agree with him that the reality of science's achievement must be a responsible socialism. Wells' situation as a writer offered him a unique position in that he was detached from the political and administrative aspects of the society he sought to change. He saw the problem of socialism as the problem of finding a competent receiver to regulate the controlling apparatus of government. From an opposing viewpoint, Margaret Thatcher suggested the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. Reading his autobiography, composed fifty years before Thatcher came to power, it seems that H.G. Wells implicitly challenges those who, like Margaret Thatcher, would question the viability of the socialist worldview. He makes his political position clear, which seems to me to be an appropriate solution for our current situation as well; that is, what if, through a program of enforced education, you could unify the opposition of competing forces which position insurrectionist politics against the temporal forces of social conditions, but without imposing the Marxist concept of class war? Wells leaves us with the proposal of an alternative viewpoint of a viable socialism, which could be of use for our current political and social problems as well. According to his view, the adoption of socialism as a comprehensive re-organization of economic life, if freed from the Marxist demand for the confiscation of private property, would be good for society. As I see it, as a working project for world reconstruction, Socialism is not only possible, but necessary. I think Wells and many others have made it their life's work to envision such a society as the true, meaningful, goal of civilization. In my opinion, we should follow their advice.

[noblethumos · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Experiment in Autobiography" is a four-volume autobiographical work by the British author H.G. Wells, first published in 1934. In the book, Wells recounts his life from his childhood to his early success as a writer, his political and social views, and his literary and personal relationships with other famous writers and intellectuals of his time.

Wells uses a unique narrative style in "Experiment in Autobiography", where he interweaves personal anecdotes with reflections on the cultural and political events of his era. He also offers critical assessments of his own work and insights into his writing process.

The title of the book refers to Wells' attempt to experiment with the traditional format of autobiography by incorporating multiple perspectives and exploring different aspects of his life beyond just a straightforward chronological account.

"Experiment in Autobiography" is considered a landmark work in the genre of autobiography for its innovative approach to self-reflection and its candid portrayal of a complex and often controversial figure. The book is also a valuable source of insight into the intellectual and cultural milieu of early 20th-century Britain.

GPT

[mwr]

I think

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating 2 volume set.
Wells is very honest in this very illuminating set of books.
A follow up came in the form of the posthumous H.G.Wells In Love.

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Until the end, this is a fascinating exercise both in honesty about oneself and in using oneself as an example of things occurring in one's society. Wells only goes astray when he starts getting preachy. There's so much in this tome, from science education, housing for the poor, and Wells' divided self.