Herbert George Wells was born in Kent in 1866, the son of a shop keeper and a lady's maid. A bookish child his education was interrupted when he served a brief and gruelling apprenticeship to a draper. He then went on to study biology under the great T. H. Huxley. He found instant literary success with the publication of his first 'scientific romance', The Time Machine in 1895 followed by The Island of Dr Moreau in 1896 and The War of the Worlds in 1898. After a brief marriage to a cousin, he married Catherine Robbins, who had been one of his students. A lifelong socialist and visionary, he also wrote extensively on social issues, history and science. He died in 1946.
