Showing results by author "H. G. Wells" in All Categories

This wonderful comedy about orphan and innocent Arthur Kipps was the means by which Wells satirized what he saw as a gross stupidity and blight upon English society: the pretensions of and obsession with class. Humble drapers' assistant Arthur unexpectedly inherits his grandfather’s fortune and is instantly propelled into a higher social strata with the subsequent problems of attaining the required behaviour of a ‘gentleman’.

Written in 1924, The Dream tells the story of a man from a utopian future who dreams the entire life of an Englishman from birth to his untimely death. Weaving the lives of Sarnac, a biologist from the year AD 4000, and Harry, a man whose life was ended too soon, Wells creates a mystical connection between two very different time periods. This classic science-fiction novel with a splash of romance has captivated audiences for generations.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer who wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography, and autobiography. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne.

La floración de la extraña orquídea, uno de los grandes cuentos de H.G. Wells, narra la historia de un coleccionista de orquídeas, quien consigue comprar algunos bulbos nuevos para su colección, los cuales provienen de una región prácticamente inexplorada de la selva. No obstante, aquellos bulbos se convierten en algo más que hermosas orquídeas: se transforman en monstruos sedientos de sangre.

El observatorio de Avu, en Borneo, se alza sobre el espolón de la montaña. Al norte se eleva el viejo cráter, negra silueta nocturna contra el insondable azul del cielo. Desde el pequeño edificio circular con su cúpula bulbosa, las laderas descienden abruptamente internándose en los negros misterios del bosque tropical que está debajo. La casita en la que viven el astrónomo y su ayudante está a unas cincuenta yardas del observatorio, y más allá están las chozas de los sirvientes nativos.

La canoa estaba acercándose ahora a tierra firme. La bahía se abría, y un intervalo en el blanco oleaje del arrecife indicaba el lugar por donde el pequeño río desembocaba en el mar. La zona de verde más espesa y profunda del bosque virgen delataba su curso bajando desde la distante ladera montañosa. Aquí el bosque casi llegaba hasta la playa. A lo lejos se levantaban las montañas de textura oscura y semejantes a nubes, como si fueran olas repentinamente heladas.

Un alpinista llamado Núñez, en su intento por coronar el Parascotopetl, el Matterhorn de los Andes, resbala y cae al otro lado de la montaña. Al final de su descenso, encuentra un valle, aislado del resto del mundo por empinados precipicios. Nuñez descubre así el mítico "País de los Ciegos". El valle había sido refugio de colonos que huían de la tiranía de gobernantes. La comunidad aislada prosperó con los años, a pesar de una enfermedad que les golpeó e hizo que los bebés nacieran ciegos.

Es un punto controvertido si el robo en domicilios ha de considerarse un deporte, un oficio o un arte. Para oficio la técnica es muy poco rigurosa, y sus pretensiones de que se lo considere un arte están viciadas por el elemento mercenario que determina sus triunfos. En general lo más apropiado parece ser clasificarlo como deporte, un deporte para el que en la actualidad todavía no se han formulado las reglas y cuyos premios se distribuyen de una manera extremadamente informal.

Mr. Hoopdriver is a frustrated draper’s assistant in Putney, London. He is badly paid, over-worked, and he needs a holiday. He also owns a bicycle—though he is an awkward rider. When his annual ten days’ holiday comes around, Mr. Hoopdriver sets out on a bicycling tour of the “Southern Coast.” Wells wrote this at the height of the bicycling craze and before the automobile. The bicycle gave freedom to the working class, weakened the English class structure and gave a boost to female emancipation. In his story he explores these changes.

Unique survivant d'un naufrage, Edward Prendick est secouru par Montgomery à bord d'un navire faisant route vers une île isolée avec une cargaison d'animaux. Montgomery se présente comme l'assistant d'un certain Docteur Moreau. Sur l'île, Prendick découvre avec effroi que les deux hommes se livrent à d'horribles expériences, greffant et modifiant des animaux pour leur apporte une conscience et la parole. Les "hommes-animaux" sont soumis à des règles précises, la Loi qui leur interdit tout comportement primitif, et ils vénèrent Moreau tel un dieu.

First published in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1895, this dark tale from master storyteller, H. G. Wells gives an account of the truly maddening battle for scientific supremacy between two notable entomologists.

Tales of Space and Time is a fantasy and science fiction collection of short stories and novellas first published in 1899. They include "The Crystal Egg"; "The Star"; "A Story of the Stone Age"; "The Idler"; and A Story of the Days to Come.

With his face swaddled in bandages, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses and his hands covered even indoors, Griffin—the new guest at The Coach and Horses—is at first assumed to be a shy accident-victim. But the true reason for his disguise is far more chilling: he has developed a process that has made him invisible and is locked in a struggle to discover the antidote. Forced from the village and driven to murder, he seeks the aid of his old friend Kemp. The horror of his fate has affected his mind, however—and when Kemp refuses to help, Griffin resolves to wreak his revenge.

The first Spoken Ink collection of 15 superb short stories by H. G. Wells, who was a master of the form. Humour and wit abound in his writing, as does sharp social observation. A scientist shows an unusually interested stranger a deadly cholera bacillus he is developing in The Stolen Bacillus, The owner of five ostriches being transported on a ship to Europe (one of which has swallowed a valuable diamond) holds an auction of four of them in A Deal in Ostriches.

From H.G. Wells, the grand master of speculative fiction, comes The Time Machine, a literary and science fiction classic brought brilliantly to life in this full-cast audio adventure. In the heart of Victorian England an inquisitive inventor constructs a Time Machine that hurtles him hundreds of thousands of years into the future. There he finds himself in the violent center of the ultimate conflict between beings of the light and creatures of the dark.

Tales of Space and Time is a fantasy and science fiction collection by H.G. Wells, comprising the three short stories "The Crystal Egg", "The Star", and "The Man Who Could Work Miracles", along with the two five-part novellas "A Story of the Stone Age", and the dystopian "A Story of the Days to Come".

A mysterious stranger arrives in a small Sussex village, covered up from head to toes with a coat, gloves, bandages, goggles and hat. The stranger demands to be left alone, spending most of his time in his room working with chemicals and laboratory apparatus. He quickly becomes the talk of the village as he unnerves the locals. Eventually, though, after a burglary (in which the thief was unseen) the stranger's secret comes out.

Set in then-present Victorian England, Wells focuses on a recount of the otherwise anonymous Time Traveller's journey into the far future. Time Machine is interpreted in modern times as a commentary on the increasing inequality and class divisions of Wells' era, which he projects as giving rise to two separate human species: the fair, childlike Eloi, and the savage, simian Morlocks, distant descendants of the contemporary upper and lower classes, respectively.

Britain won the Moon Race! Decades before Neal Armstrong took his "giant leap for mankind", two intrepid adventurers from Lympne, England, journeyed there using not a rocket, but an antigravity coating. Mr. Bedford, who narrates the tale, tells of how he fell in with eccentric inventor Mr. Cavor, grew to believe in his research, helped him build a sphere for traveling in space, and then partnered with him in an expedition to the Moon. What they found was fantastic!

Anticipations, a 1901 book by H.G. Wells, is a collection of prognostications for the 20th century, and was Wells' first nonfiction best seller. Covering topics like urban growth, transportation systems, societies, language, war, democracy, and public policy, it sets out the author's ideas of what the world would be like 100 years later, in the year 2000. Wells was wrong in some aspects and quite right in others. He expected a single worldwide government with one official language, one global religion, and universal peace.