"When H.G. Wells left school in 1880 at the age of thirteen he looked destined for obscurity. Defying expectations, he went on to become one of the most famous writers in the world, remaining active into the era of the atomic bomb, which he had predicted thirty years earlier. Along the way he created classic science-fiction tales such as The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds, reinvented the Dickensian novel in Kipps and The History of Mr Polly, pioneered postmodernism in experimental fictions such as Tono-Bungay and harangued his contemporaries in a series of left-liberal polemics which included two bestselling histories of the world." "He brought equal energy to his love life, outrageously promiscuous even by the standards of today. A series of often overlapping affairs embraced distinguished authors such as Dorothy Richardson and Rebecca West, daughters of friends, the gun-toting travel writer Odette Keun and the Russian spy Moura Budberg. Wells had many artistic and ideological confrontations with his contemporaries, from Henry James and George Orwell to Churchill and Stalin, and remains a controversial figure to this day, attacked by some as a philistine, a sexist and a racist, praised by others as a great writer, a prophet of globalization and a pioneer of human rights." "Wells scholar Michael Sherborne sets the record straight in a detailed, authoritative biography, which draws on a deep knowledge of published and unpublished sources. It is the first full-scale account of Wells to include material from the long-suppressed 'skeleton correspondence' with his mistresses and illegitimate daughter."--BOOK JACKET.

What began as a broadcast performance of H.G. Wells' fantasy, The War of the Worlds, turned into one of the biggest mass hysteria events in U.S. history. American Experience examines the elements that together created this frenzy, including our longtime fascination with life on Mars; the emergence of radio as a powerful new medium; and the creative wunderkind Orson Welles, the twenty-three-year-old director of the drama and mischief-maker supreme.