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

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!

For more than a hundred years, science-fiction writers around the world have captured our imaginations with speculations about journeys into the past or future. Countless novels, short stories, movies and TV shows have used or adapted the theme of time travel. However, all of them owe a debt to Herbert George Wells. This, his first major novel, published in 1895, was the origin of the very concept of time travel. It is considered by many to be one of the greatest science-fiction novels of all time.

Wells had a keen interest in the political and social issues of his day, one of the most significant of which was the outbreak of the First World War. This book, written in 1916, presents the story of Mr Britling, a political commentator, living in comfortable security in his country estate at Matchings Easy, in Essex. He entertains a varied assembly of guests, including Mr Direck, an American journalist, and Herr Heinrich, a German philology student who acts as a family tutor, and the general atmosphere is a hectic social whirl.

When the village is besieged by strange thefts by an uncatchable thief, the clues might lie with the odd-acting stranger. Revealing his incredible secret, he has turned himself invisible, Griffin escapes and seeks those whom he might suborn into aiding him. Driven to darkness by his inability to make himself visible again, Griffin decides to use his misfortune to terrorise others. Greeted with fear and suspicion and betrayed by those around him, Griffin is determined to show just how dangerous an unseen enemy can be.

The War of the Worlds (1898), by H.G. Wells, is an early science fiction novel which describes an invasion of England by aliens from Mars. It is one of the earliest and best-known depictions of an alien invasion of Earth, and has influenced many others, as well as spawning several films, radio dramas, comic book adaptations, and a television series based on the story. The 1938 radio broadcast caused public outcry against the episode, as many listeners believed that an actual Martian invasion was in progress, a notable example of mass hysteria.

There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.

After many days at sea, Edward Prendick is picked up by a schooner transporting exotic animals to an undisclosed location. On this secret island he is forced to disembark, catching faint glimpses of creatures born from nightmares.

One would think that after the momentous events of 1969 H.G Wells’ science fiction adventure The First Men in the Moon would have lost any fascination for the modern listener. Yet, of course, Wells is never concerned merely with the mechanics of science fiction. It is surely the human reaction to these events that grips us and causes us to return again and again to this story.

This classic early-19th-century science-fiction masterpiece serves as both a wonderful period presentation of the time as well as cautionary tale. Called by many a "chilling novel account of a Martian invasion of London in the 19th century - a science-fiction classic for all time".

This coming-of-age novel explores themes including religious skepticism, socialism, ennui, English society, sexual relationships, and metaphysics, as George searches for an ideal to which he can devote his life. Like all Wells’s novels, Tono-Bungay abounds with social critique.

"The Argonauts of the Air" is the tale of Monson, an eccentric millionaire with a passion for engineering, who is determined to invent the world's first flying machine. As his attempts run up against endless hurdles and delays, he becomes the laughingstock of London, but this only spurs Monson on to attempt the maiden flight of his marvellous machine.

An anthology of chilling, classic horror stories, including "The Tale-Tell Heart", "The Pit and the Pendulum", and "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe; "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving; "The Hand", "Was it a Dream?", and "The Horla" by Guy de Maupassant; "The Red Room" by H.G. Wells; "Moon-Face" by Jack London; "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels and is frequently credited as being the father of science fiction. 'The Magic Shop' is the story of a small boy and his father who go into a shop which appears to sell magic tricks. But the proprietor insists that all the tricks are really genuine magic, and the longer they stay in the shop the stranger the tricks become. Then the shopkeeper performs one truly terrifying trick...and what happens next is very peculiar....

As a child, Artie Kipps is left in the care of his aunt and uncle, who have a toy shop in New Romney, Kent. His friends are Sid Pornick and his sister Ann, with whom he falls childishly in love. At the age of 14 Artie is apprenticed to Mr Shalford at the Folkestone Drapery Bazaar, and he loses touch with the Pornicks. Life as an apprentice is grim, and he joins an evening class to improve himself. It is run by Helen Washingham, who is beautiful, artistic and socially smart, and Kipps is bedazzled by her.

"Ann Veronica" is a New Woman novel by H. G. Wells published in 1909. "Ann Veronica" describes the rebellion of Ann Veronica Stanley, "a young lady of nearly two-and-twenty", against her middle-class father's stern patriarchal rule. The novel dramatizes the contemporary problem of the New Woman. It is set in Victorian era London and environs, except for an Alpine excursion. Ann Veronica offers vignettes of the women's suffrage movement in Great Britain and features a chapter inspired by the 1908 attempt of suffragettes to storm Parliament.

The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 and written as a frame narrative. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively forward or backward through time. The term "time machine", coined by Wells, is now almost universally used to refer to such a vehicle or device.

Raconteurs Audio and Spoken Realms team up once again to bring this second collection of short stories by H. G. Wells to audio. Written between 1894 and 1902, this anthology of 13 stories delves into botany, flying machines, travel, distant lands and customs, virology, magic, taxidermy, journalism - and there’s even a ghost story.

Who knew mystery better than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Who knew science fiction better than H. G. Wells? Who knew high adventure better than... Escape? Venture into dark forests and darker jungles for suspenseful stories of creatures and curses, trains and treasure, secrets and superstitions. Jack Webb, William Conrad, Paul Frees, Peggy Webber, John Dehner, and Gerald Mohr thrill in tales by Doyle, Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Roald Dahl, Stephen Vincent Benet, and more.

A brilliant collection of some of the finest old sea stories ever written. 'The Overcrowded Iceberg' by Morley Roberts, 'The Substitute' by W. W. Jacobs, 'Reparation' by J. D. Beresford, 'The Paradise Coal-Boat' by Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne, 'The Registered Packet' by J. S. Fletcher, 'Treasure Trove' by Neil Munro, 'The Vengeance of La Maraye' by J. S. Fletcher, 'The Sea-Raiders' by H. G. Wells, 'No Ships Pass' by Eleanor Smith....

H. P. Lovecraft 15 Essential Stories & H. G. Wells 7 Essential Stories: 22 stories of real fantastic, horror or science fiction classics. Lovecraft: The Temple, Dagon, The Music of Erich Zann, The Nameless City, Hypnos, The Outsider, The Colour out of Space, The Rats in the Walls, The History of Necronomicon, Azathoth, The Stolen Body, The Lurking Fear, The Whisperer in Darkness, Herbert West Reanimator, The Shadow over Innsmouth. H. G. Wells: The Valley of Spiders, The Magic Shop, Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation, Miss Winchelsea's Heart.