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H.G. Wells: A Literary Life
This is the first new complete biography of H G Wells for thirty years, and the first to encompass his entire career as a writer, from the science fiction of the 1890s through his fiction and non-fiction writing all the way up to his last publication in 1946. It provides a comprehensive reassessment of Wells's importance as a novelist, short-story writer, a theorist of social prophecy and utopia, journalist and commentator: the man who coined the phrases 'atom bomb', 'League of Nations' 'the war to end war' and 'time machine', who wrote the world's first comprehensive global history and invented the idea of the tank. 26 chapters cover the entirety of Wells life and discuss every book and short story he produced during his long life, aiming for a complete vision of this enduring figure.
- GenresBiography
452 pages, Paperback
First published November 23, 2019
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About the author
Adam Roberts
258 books561 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Adam Roberts (born 1965) is an academic, critic and novelist. He also writes parodies under the pseudonyms of A.R.R.R. Roberts, A3R Roberts and Don Brine. He also blogs at The Valve, a group blog devoted to literature and cultural studies.
He has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adam Roberts has been nominated twice for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001, for his debut novel, Salt, and in 2007, for Gradisil.
Adam Roberts (born 1965) is an academic, critic and novelist. He also writes parodies under the pseudonyms of A.R.R.R. Roberts, A3R Roberts and Don Brine. He also blogs at The Valve, a group blog devoted to literature and cultural studies.
He has a degree in English from the University of Aberdeen and a PhD from Cambridge University on Robert Browning and the Classics. He teaches English literature and creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Adam Roberts has been nominated twice for the Arthur C. Clarke Award: in 2001, for his debut novel, Salt, and in 2007, for Gradisil.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 8, 2020
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3366809.html
It is a straightforward sequencing of Wells’ novels, looked at through the lens of what was going on in his life at the time. Wells wrote a lot of novels and lived a long life, so it’s quite a long book, though for the sf fan the interest goes off the boil after the first few chapters. I definitely felt I learned more from this than from David Lodge’s A Man of Parts. One technical point - rather more proof-reading errors than I would have expected from a professional publisher.
It is a straightforward sequencing of Wells’ novels, looked at through the lens of what was going on in his life at the time. Wells wrote a lot of novels and lived a long life, so it’s quite a long book, though for the sf fan the interest goes off the boil after the first few chapters. I definitely felt I learned more from this than from David Lodge’s A Man of Parts. One technical point - rather more proof-reading errors than I would have expected from a professional publisher.
July 20, 2021
I read this mainly because its author Adam Roberts is one of my favourite fiction writers. He's also a very astute critic and his discussions of HG Wells' voluminous output (the vast bulk of which I haven't read and very likely never will) still kept me engaged throughout. Wells was one of the most successful & celebrated writers of his age. Most remembered today for his early science fiction, he was very influential and well regarded in his lifetime for his political & historical nonfiction, most of which barely registers today. Despite his evident desire to draw attention to Wells' achievements, I'm grateful Roberts didn't neglect to point out the most repulsive elements of Wells' output. Wells was a racist, an antisemite & was a fan of eugenics well into his old age. I enjoyed this literary biography almost as much as I found the subject's personality repugnant.
August 2, 2020
This is a 'literary life' rather than a biography. Although Roberts does cover the main points in Wells' life, these are linked to a series of examinations of most of Wells' many books. Roberts frequently gives vivid new (to me, at least) readings that make me want to read or re-read the book in question, or seek it out if I don't have it.
December 13, 2023
H.G. Wells had a long and very varied career stretching into the 1940s, yet today he is famous almost entirely on the basis of the first handful of novels he wrote in the 1890s. Adam Roberts (who, as well as being a sci-fi writer, is also a professor of 19th century literature) has the sometimes-unenviable job of reading through everything Wells ever wrote in order to build up a fuller picture of Wells as a writer, a thinker and a lover (Wells was in his day as notorious for his love affairs as his politics or his stories). He finds some hidden gems among Wells' later works, while also remaining clear-headed about the darker strains in Wells' writing - obsessed with the idea of a unified World State, Wells rejected fascism and communism, yet imagined a utopian future that could only be brought about through eugenics, oppression, violence and dictatorship.
Roberts prefers reinterpretation over simply repeating established readings of the novels. In some cases, he finds new connections that illuminate Wells' life, but in sometimes I think his speculation oversteps what is acceptable in a literary biography. For example, Roberts sees in The History of Mr Polly a parallel to Dante's Divine Comedy, with each chapter loosely (and not very convincingly) paralleling a circle of hell. It's fun speculation, but it doesn't seem to have been what Wells had in mind (indeed, it contradicts Wells' explanations of how he wrote, not that that should be taken uncritically). It paints a false image of Wells as a writer, which is a serious charge for a book subtitled "A Literary Life".
(Speaking of the World State, I'm willing to be slightly more charitable than Roberts about Wells' prophecy there. Undoubtedly, the idea that the world would merrily acquiesce to global scientific dictatorship was ridiculously wrongheaded, but technocratic globalisation really did become the dominant world-unifying force in the second half of the 20th century. He was - in my view - even right that this technocracy would come from the airline industry (air travel went from being a daredevil sport to the safest mode of transport in human history by implementing rigid systematic surveillance and control on every variable, and this was subsequently adopted across business and government). Where he went wrong was assuming there would be just one World State free of conflict. Instead, every political force united into a global form - capitalist globalism, of course, but to counter-balance it came Comecon and OPEC. Even nationalism went paradoxically global, until we got a US president publicly praising a Russian dictator for attacking American democracy. Wells' error was more in imagining that life in the World State would be any more conflict-free than life in the multipolar world.)
Roberts prefers reinterpretation over simply repeating established readings of the novels. In some cases, he finds new connections that illuminate Wells' life, but in sometimes I think his speculation oversteps what is acceptable in a literary biography. For example, Roberts sees in The History of Mr Polly a parallel to Dante's Divine Comedy, with each chapter loosely (and not very convincingly) paralleling a circle of hell. It's fun speculation, but it doesn't seem to have been what Wells had in mind (indeed, it contradicts Wells' explanations of how he wrote, not that that should be taken uncritically). It paints a false image of Wells as a writer, which is a serious charge for a book subtitled "A Literary Life".
(Speaking of the World State, I'm willing to be slightly more charitable than Roberts about Wells' prophecy there. Undoubtedly, the idea that the world would merrily acquiesce to global scientific dictatorship was ridiculously wrongheaded, but technocratic globalisation really did become the dominant world-unifying force in the second half of the 20th century. He was - in my view - even right that this technocracy would come from the airline industry (air travel went from being a daredevil sport to the safest mode of transport in human history by implementing rigid systematic surveillance and control on every variable, and this was subsequently adopted across business and government). Where he went wrong was assuming there would be just one World State free of conflict. Instead, every political force united into a global form - capitalist globalism, of course, but to counter-balance it came Comecon and OPEC. Even nationalism went paradoxically global, until we got a US president publicly praising a Russian dictator for attacking American democracy. Wells' error was more in imagining that life in the World State would be any more conflict-free than life in the multipolar world.)
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews