H.G. Wells

Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) was an English novelist, historian, journalist, and social commentator widely hailed alongside Jules Verne as the 'Father of Science Fiction'. Born into a working-class family, he won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London, studying biology under Thomas Henry Huxley, which grounded his visionary speculative fiction in rigorous evolutionary theory.

Between 1895 and 1901, Wells produced an astonishing series of pioneering 'scientific romances'—The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, and The First Men in the Moon. He foresaw time travel, alien invasion, genetic engineering, tanks, aerial warfare, and nuclear weapons. In later life, his bestselling The Outline of History and advocacy for human rights helped inspire the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.