內(nèi)容簡介:Although best known for his scientific romances that paved the way for the modern science fiction genre, H. G. Wells (1866-1946) produced significant works on politics, society, science and history. Thanks in part to his teacher, T. H. Huxley, Wells became quite interested in the works of well known scientists like Charles Darwin, and admired their ability to imagine and think beyond their times. When writing his 1905 novel, "A Modern Utopia", Wells drew upon Darwinism to trace humanity's evolution and create something like a world state on a distant planet that is identical to Earth. This novel, which blends fiction and philosophy, presents a socialistic Utopian society, in which the whole world shares a common language, capital punishment has been abolished, there is gender equality, and every individual shares the plan for "comprehensive onward development". While acknowledging that a modern Utopia is essentially impossible, Wells comes close to such a world in this fascinating and eerily prophetic novel.
作者簡介: Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, England, on September 21, 1866. His father was a professional cricketer and sometime shopkeeper, his mother a former lady’s maid. Although "Bertie" left school at fourteen to become a draper’s apprentice (a life he detested), he later won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London, where he studied with the famous Thomas Henry Huxley. He began to sell articles and short stories regularly in 1893. In 1895, his immediately successful novel rescued him from a life of penury on a schoolteacher’s salary. His other "scientific romances"— The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), The First Men in the Moon (1901), and The War in the Air (1908)—won him distinction as the father of science fiction. Henry James saw in Wells the most gifted writer of the age, but Wells, having coined the phrase "the war that will end war" to describe World War I, became increasingly disillusioned and focused his attention on educating mankind with his bestselling Outline of History (1920) and his later utopian works. Living until 1946, Wells witnessed a world more terrible than any of his imaginative visions, and he bitterly observed: "Reality has taken a leaf from my book and set itself to supercede me."
Francis Wheen is a journalist, author, and broadcaster.
Gregory Claeys is a historian at the University of Royal Holloway, London.
Gregory Claeys is a historian at the University of Royal Holloway, London.