H. G. Wells

This article addresses the charge that the introduction of the electric light in the late nineteenth century increased disruptions to the human body's biological processes and interfered with the oscillating sleeping-waking cycle. By considering the nineteenth century research into the factors that motivate and disrupt sleep in concert with contemporary discussions of the physiology of street lighting, this article exposes how social and political forces shaped the impact of artificial light on sleep and, more perniciously, on bodily autonomy. As a close reading of artificial light in three influential dystopian novels building on these historical contexts demonstrates, dystopian fiction challenges the commonplace assumption that the advent of the electric light, or of widespread street lighting in public urban spaces, posed an immediate or inherent threat to sleep. Beginning with H. G. Wells's The Sleeper Awakes (1899), in which the eponymous sleeper emerges from a cataleptic trance into a future in which electric light and power are used to control the populace, representations of artificial light in early dystopian fiction of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries depict a nightmare of total illumination in which the state exerted its control over the individual. In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), constant artificial illumination plays a vital role in the chemical and behavioural conditioning undergone by individuals in a post-Fordian world. George Orwell intensifies this relationship between light and individual autonomy in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), where access to electric current (and thus light) is limited at certain times of the day, brownouts and electrical rationing occur intermittently, and total illumination is used to torture and reprogram individuals believed to have betrayed Big Brother.

Inspired by H. G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau, M. Renard in his Le Docteur Lerne, sous-dieu (1908) portrays a mad scientist experimenting on living organisms, creating hybrids of humans, animals and plants. Renard extends the anachronistic theory of the Chain of Being to include machines, which he sees as the future of humanity, securing the place of his Lerne in the vanguard of transumanist literature. This paper aims to examine the novel's intertextual references to both fictional and actual history of science.

In H. G. Wells's The Time Machine and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, power is exercised for its own sake and in the name of “civilization”. The split of society in The Time Machine presents how it would look like in the future if the class problems would prevail. Rich segments of society using their power for power's sake further pushed the poor classes underground, both metaphorically and literally. Inequality shaped the evolution of these two classes in strikingly different ways. The Heart of Darkness, on the other hand, presents a fraction of human history to exemplify the terrific consequences of a mindset that would exercise his power on anything just because he can. One can consider Wells’ novel to be a prophetic result of Conrad’s civilization concept. In both novels, the ways of exercising power are excused by misunderstood concepts of "civilization" and wronged the paths the human race should have taken.

Art and war have gone hand in hand since the concept of war. From photographers to painters, writers, and scribes, documentation of war has been prevalent throughout time. Whether it be prefacing or recapping, literature has played an pivotal role in the perception of war. While pre-World War I Europeans were aware that Europe was on the brink of war, literary works such as Lay Down Your Arms, The War in the Air, and Manifesto of Futurism depicted mixed feelings of excitement, apprehension, and contempt for the horror that was to follow.

En este trabajo se describen las transformaciones de la novela The Time Machine, escrita por H. G. Wells y publicada en 1895, desde su origen, la publicación por entregas, hasta la adaptación cinematográfica del mismo nombre, dirigida por George Pal en 1960 y la obra de arte contemporáneo The Time Machine in Alphabetical Order (2010) de los artistas británicos Tomson & Craighead. Se analiza en particular el rol de la elipsis como generadora del relato, los procesos de adaptación y el rol del lector/espectador en esta construcción.

At once delicate, exotic, and elegant, orchids are beloved for their singular, instantly recognizable beauty. Found in nearly every climate, the many species of orchid have carried symbolic weight in countless cultures over time. The ancient Greeks associated them with fertility and thought that parents who ingested orchid root tubers could control the sex of their child. During the Victorian era, orchids became deeply associated with romance and seduction. And in twentieth-century hard-boiled detective stories, they transformed into symbols of decadence, secrecy, and cunning. What is it about the orchid that has enthralled the imagination for so many centuries? And why do they still provoke so much wonder?

Conhecido escritor de obras de ficção científica, H. G. Wells, como muitos dos escritores desse gênero literário, tem a fama de serem como que profetas de tempos futuros. Quando se olha para o escritor inglês, contudo, vemos a humanidade reduzida a refém de poderes extraterrestres e escravos do aprimoramento tecnológico, como no livro "A guerra dos mundos", onde as bactérias derrotam os marcianos, e não a humanidade, ao todo, impotente.

Como corolário da incapacidade dos seres humanos de enfrentarem os próprios desafios, mais complexos com o passar do tempo, Wells foi publicista das ideias discutidas nos altos círculos do Império Britânico que o fizeram ser, além de escritor de ficção científica, também um dos pioneiros na produção de literatura pornográfica. “Seu talento era, como ele implicitamente descreve a si mesmo, um homem com o olhar de um proxeneta para suscetibilidade de sua clientela depravada com fantasias sexuais não tão escondidas”.

Suas três antecipações de acordo com as ideias da elite dirigente que o patrocinava foram 1) armas nucleares, 2) governo mundial, 3) masturbação neo-malthusiana, ou seja, ambientalismo. Armas nucleares e governo mundial vemos agora no íntimo entrelaçamento entre a política bélica ocidental reunida em torno da OTAN e as diretrizes de "crescimento zero", de atentado à soberania nacional, feitas pelo sistema financeiro transatlântico, seja através de FMI, Banco Mundial ou correlatos. São duas forças que andam juntas. Na parte mais "estética", mais "soft" das políticas imperialistas, o ambientalismo como meio de alavancar o "crescimento zero", como nas "tecnologias apropriadas" para a África e não projetos de integração regional com alto grau de investimentos, para dar um exemplo.

Balcanização e não desenvolvimento dos Estado-nacionais soberanos. A prática da chamada Guerra Fria, como no macartismo passado e como no atual, talvez ainda mais intenso (e que sentimos como nunca aqui no Brasil). Profeta do caos, das ideias nefastas dos círculos dirigentes internacionais. Este, H. G. Wells.

This talk is the product of the author's archaeological researches beneath the I.Hill of Constantinople with the permission of Turkish Ministery of Culture and Tourism. We have discovered and drawn the plansof 1km.of the subterranean channels and three related chambers in Hagia Sophia in the above mentioned period. The chambers and most of the channels were totally new for the literature. Additionally, eight wells were discovered under the building and in the courtyards through using the methods of diving and caving. New findings about the hypogeum in the north courtyard have been recorded. In the Topkapı Palace area we discovered 1250m. of channels under the Second Courtyard and Harem section. Hippodrome Sphendone water supply channel, cistern and water distribution are studied and published. All of those structures' architectural measurements taken and plans drawn and published.

The article discusses how the emerging genre of American and British science fiction symbolised and expressed Cold War anxieties after 1949. 
It begins by briefly showing how a popular Western symbolised the Berlin Airlift, then considers how several new Sci Fi novels, including "The Martian Chronicles," "The Day of the Triffids," "I am Legend," and "The Bodysnatchers" each respond more precisely to changing Soviet aggression. 
The chief writers explored are Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, John Wyndham, Richard Matheson, Jack Finney, and the television writer Terry Nation.  Connections are drawn between key science fiction novels and public concerns about possible atomic war, espionage fears, future Soviet invasion, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
It then suggests a shift in meaning affecting British science fiction from the mid-1950s, with rising fears about the demise of empire, and concerns that European civilisation is waning.  The chief writers discussed in this regard are John Christopher, whose work is linked with the Suez Crisis, & J.G. Ballard's "The Drowned World."  Strong links are also established between several British science fiction novels and William Golding's "Lord of the Flies."
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The essay argues that the Crakers—genetically modified human beings appearing in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy—should be seen not only as a result of techno-scientific brilliance and power struggle, but also as a product of artistic creativity. Starting with close reading of several passages which indirectly but effectively indicate that the Crakers should be regarded as a form of art, the essay then moves on to the consideration of probable predecessors of the kind of artistic creativity that the Crakers represent. One model for Crake’s artistic creation of human beings is seen in the avant-garde movements of the first half of the twentieth century which tried to combine art, technology and politics to create the New Man. The essay also focuses on the trilogy’s references to the more recent transgenic art, arguing that Crake’s artistic activity should be seen in the light of the criticism leveled nowadays at this form of art. Finally, Crake’s creative act is shown in the context of the classic works of literature which deal with a similar theme, namely Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells.

“Anthony Burgess and Science Fiction”, Jim Clarke, SFRA Review 313, Summer 2015, pp. 28-35.

Anthony Burgess was a reluctant writer of SF, but a highly influential one. This article, for the SFRA Review, introduces the author and his SF work and seeks to explain the reason behind his sudden reversal of attitude towards SF in mid-career.

Allusions to rabbits and poaching recur throughout H. G. Wells's work. In spite of the frequency with which they appear, these motifs remain overlooked within scholarly criticism. This article, by analysing Wells's representations of rabbit-poaching, first considers how nineteenth-century histories of industrialisation and game-crime shape his science fiction. It then explores the contradictory nature of these representations, which both demonise and sympathise with the figure of the rabbit-poacher, providing further insight into the class confusion that recent criticism perceives to characterise Wells's writing in this period.

Antonio Sant’Elia’s project for a future city opens a new season for architecture where utopia and the image of a city are inseparable. Between the 19th and 20th century several architects studied their contemporary city and its possible improvement through changes of existing models, but still no one had suggested a brand new configuration for the city of the future. The design process of the Città Nuova is a metonymic process through which Sant’Elia transfers knowledge and learning from one field of interest to another: his cultural roots involve ideas and visions taken from various contexts such as the first science fiction literature or American illustrations. If architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space we can consider Antonio Sant’Elia a simultaneous interpreter of thoughts and images that he decided to translate into architecture using the tools of drawing. Nevertheless this architecture is unbuilt, it is pure image.

The chapter analyses H. G. Wells’s characterization of the The Time Machine’s protagonist and narrator, the Time Traveller, whose story serves as part of Wells’s broader strategy for criticising late Victorian modalities of science communication to non-specialist audiences. The Traveller’s ability to translate his scientific expertise into economic and social mobility is accompanied by ‘gift of speech’ which positions him as a potential popularizer of scientific knowledge. Wells addresses this capacity in his narrative of the future, which is embedded in late Victorian cultural discourses founded on misinterpretations of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. As a scientist who fails to distance himself from popular fallacies about evolution, the Traveller’s persona reflects deep frustration with widespread misunderstandings of science: a frustration which Wells concurrently expressed in his journalism.

This thesis offers a study of a particular period (1884-1899) in Britain in which Fantastic literature revealed itself as a convergence point of multiple anxieties of late nineteenth-century society. Fantastic literature is a genre often mistaken for Gothic, Fantasy or the like, that in fact has its own particular' rhetoric and literary conventions. In this study I present some of the most important social and literary elements of the context in which Fantastic literature emerged in Britain - the conventions of Gothic literature, a short history of Spiritualism, the scientific organizations devoted to the study of paranormal phenomena, such as the Society for Psychical Research, and a brief summary of the social evolutionist ideas of Thomas Huxley and H.G. Wells. By examining the context and some representative works of Fantastic literature, like R.L. Stevenson's 'Olalla' (1884), Arthur Conan Doyle's 'The Parasite' (1895), Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898) and H.G. Wells's When the Sleeper Wakes (1899), we get a better idea of essential characteristics of Fantastic literature, that is, of the elements within these stories that reflect some important issues of late Victorian society. One can see that the rhetoric of the Fantastic sheds light on phenomena linked with uncertainty and fear in late nineteenth-century society, such·as occultism, supernatural sightings, haunted houses and spiritualism. During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries Fantastic literature has survived alongside Fantasy literature (J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings), magical realism (Salman Rushdie's Midnight Children or Garda Marquez's One Hundred Years ofSolitude) and children's literature (J. K. Rawling's Harry Potter) preserving its own identity and rhetoric. Italo Calvina's The Rampant Baron, J.L. Borges's 'The Aleph' and Haruki Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle indicate that Fantastic literature still has its place in literature because it expresses a particular kind of ideas that cannot find expression in other genres. This is an analysis of those ideas through the study of some of the first Fantastic literary works written in Britain.

In A Christmas Carol the protagonist journeys to the past and future: it is, at its very heart, a story about time travel, and yet this aspect of the tale has been overlooked by both Dickensians and SF scholars. This article examines the nature of time travel in Dickens's story, its use and implications, and compares this to the model adopted by H G Wells in his subsequent work The Time Machine, which, despite postdating the Carol, has long since been seen as the father of time travel fiction.

Distopya kelimesi ilk defa İngiliz John Stuart Mill tarafından 19. yüzyılın başında kullanıldı. Kendisi devlet memuru ve filozoftu. Yalnız kelime kökeni bu yıllarda çıksa da ilk distopik öğeler mitoloji ile baş gösterdi. Uranus yeni doğan çocuklarının hepsini eşi ve annesi Gaia’nın karnına geri iterek yeni gelen potansiyel “baş tanrılar”ın doğmasına izin vermedi. Buna sinirlenen Gaia ise türlü hilelere başvurarak oğlu Kronos’a eşinin hayalarını kestirdi. George Orwell’ın da 1984’teki “… Kimse devrimi korumak için diktatörlük kurmaz; diktatörlük kurmak için devrim yapar.” sözüne paralel olarak Kronos da kendi çocuklarını yedi. Saltanatın yahut kötülüğün isim değiştirdiğini görüyoruz bu gibi örneklerde, ama asla yok olmuyor. Aynı enerjinin korunum yasası gibi, hep vardı. Hep el değiştiriyor. Bu dosyada savaşların, yaşamın içindeki distopyaların sanatçıyı nasıl etkilediğini, sanata yansımalarını çok kısa bir biçimde inceleyeceğiz.

A partir da 2ª metade do século XIX, escritores como H. G. Wells e Jules Verne escreveram romances cujos temas e ambientes se referiam de certa forma à história humana, às possibilidades investigativas da ciência e aos potenciais caminhos em direção ao futuro, nem sempre otimistas. Alguns desses escritores não se limitaram à produção ficcional. Além de letrados e profundamente cultos, eram singulares observadores e críticos do seu tempo. Entre esses homens de letras, estava Herbert George Wells (1866-1946), popularmente conhecido como H. G. Wells, um dos autores mais importantes da literatura “científica” do seu tempo. Entretanto, sua obra não ficcional é bem menos conhecida e investigada. Assim, o objetivo principal dessa pesquisa é propor possíveis interpretações para o sentido da história em H. G. Wells a partir da análise de um de seus escritos não ficcionais de maior sucesso editorial, The outline of History: being a plain history of life and mankind, publicado primeiramente em 1919, cuja tradução no Brasil ficou a cargo de Anísio Teixeira, adquirindo o título História
Universal. Entendo que se encontra presente na obra do escritor inglês a ideia de que o entendimento da história de uma forma ampla, abarcando a humanidade, diferentemente do sentido nacionalista, teria evitado os flagelos das guerras, em especial da 1ª Guerra Mundial. Adicionalmente, Wells defende uma utilidade prática da História, relacionada a um valor moral e educador nela existente.

From the 2nd half of the nineteenth century, writers like H. G. Wells and Jules Verne wrote novels whose themes and environments referred in some way to human history, the
investigative possibilities of science and potential paths into the future, not always optimistic. Some of these writers were not limited to fictional production. Educated and deeply learned, they were special observers and critics of his time. Among these men, there was Herbert George Wells (1866-1946), popularly known as H. G. Wells, one of the most important authors of the “scientific” literature of his time. However, his non-fiction work is less well known and investigated. Thus, the main objective of this research is to propose possible interpretations to the meaning of history in H. G. Wells from the analysis of one of his nonfiction
writings of greater publishing success, The outline of History: being a plain history of life and mankind, published first in 1919, translated in Brazil by Anísio Teixeira, acquiring the title História Universal. I understand that is presented in the work of the English writer the idea that history understanding of a broad approach covering mankind, unlike the nationalistic sense, would have prevented the scourges of war, in particular the First World War. In addition, Wells argues for a practical use of History related to existing educational and moral values in it.

This dissertation used word-frequency analysis to differentiate the psycholinguistic characteristics of fiction writing, specifically genre writing with a focus on masterwork dystopian novels. The primary research question was: What does a word-frequency analysis indicate about the psychological characteristics of masterwork dystopian novels? This question entailed two primary support questions: Does the dystopian canon of masterwork novels exhibit more psychoaffective distancing than other genres of novels (i.e., is this distancing an individuating characteristic)? Can embodiment be represented and discussed through a quantitative psychological word-frequency assessment?

In the respective literatures, textual embodiment is characteristic of fiction writing, the dystopian genre is partly defined by psychological characteristics, and word usages reveal the disposition of a narrative voice. Addressing this intersection of fiction, genre, and psychology, word-frequency characteristics helped (i) distinguish novels from other types of writing, (ii) measure embodiment and emotional tone in a text, (iii) describe and individuate dystopian fiction, and (iv) differentiate dystopian works and authors.

H. G. Wells was one of the most celebrated writers in the world during the first half of the twentieth century. Famed for his innovative fiction, he was also an influential advocate of socialism and the world state. What is much less well-known is that he was a significant contributor to debates about the nature of social science. This article argues that Wells’s account of social science in general, and sociology in particular, was shaped by an idiosyncratic philosophical pragmatism. In order to demonstrate how his philosophical arguments inflected his social thought, it explores his attack on prevailing theories of race, while also highlighting the limits of his account. The article concludes by tracing the reception of Wells’s ideas among social scientists on both sides of the Atlantic. Although his programme for utopian sociology attracted few disciples, his arguments about the dynamics of modern societies found a large audience among social scientists and political thinkers.

Nadie discute a Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) como uno de los precursores de la moderna literatura de ciencia ficción. Su celebérrima La máquina del tiempo, además, le otorgó en 1895 el blasón de inventor literario de la máquina del tiempo. Sin embargo, contra la opinión general, la patente de esa invención no pertenece (al menos en exclusiva) a H. G. Wells. En 1887, es decir, ocho años antes de La máquina del tiempo, se publicó en Barcelona El anacronópete de Enrique Gaspar y Rimbau (1842-1902).