H.G. Wells at the End of His Tether

Book excerpt: H.G. Wells was one of the most prolific writers in the English language. He published over one hundred books, yet he is recognized by only two or three of his popular novels including The Time Machine and War of the Worlds. Why has such a well known and widely read author from the nineteenth century almost disappeared from the bookshelves of the twenty-first century? H.G. Wells at the End of His Tether attempts to answer this question and others by examining his work from a nineteenth century perspective. Wells was a controversial figure. He was an avid socialist and a self-proclaimed prophet. He hated the Church and the Monarchy and spent much of his life promoting utopian ideals, world government and other radical concepts that are politically incorrect today. As he watched the First World War tear Europe asunder he wrote The War to End War and created a new label for that infamous conflict. He was a highly vocal anti-war journalist and often frustrated by how little impact he was making on the world. When the Second World War descended on Europe he became despondent as he approached the end of his political and literary tether.