A fascinating journey into the early life of H.G. Wells, the father of science fiction, from one of Britain's best biographers How did the first forty years of H.G Wells' life shape a fantastic writer into a visionary?Claire Tomalin's remarkable and empathic biography, focusing on HG Wells' early life, offers a new understanding of one of Britain's most influential writers. From his impoverished childhood in a working-class English family, to his determination to educate himself at any cost, to the serious ill health that dominated his twenties and thirties, and the sudden success of The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds which transformed his life and catapulted him to international fame - Claire Tomalin paints a fascinating portrait of a man, a misfit, a socialist, a futurist and a writer whose new and imaginative worlds continue to inspire today.'The finest of biographers' Hilary Mantel'A most intelligent and sympathetic biographer' Daily Telegraph 'One of the best biographers of her generation' Guardian