This style of writing focused on military conquest, especially regarding the sudden invasion of a city or country by foreign enemies. The War of the Worlds forged a new direction for a genre known as Invasion Literature. Wells was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature four times, and is widely known as one of the “fathers of science fiction.”

He also composed acclaimed realist novels, nonfiction works about science and history, and political tracts. In his science fiction writing, Wells defined what are now established conventions of the genre (including alien invasion and mechanical time travel). By the end of his time at university, he was beginning to see writing as his main occupation as he wrote biology textbooks and short stories, one of which (“The Chronic Argonauts”) went on to become The Time Machine, one of his most famous novels.

Wells’s university years fostered his passion for socialism, devotion to science, and interest in writing. Huxley was a passionate proponent of Darwin’s theory of natural selection-a theory that figures prominently in The War of the Worlds. Wells eventually apprenticed under a chemist and earned a spot at a university where he studied biology with Thomas Henry Huxley. Although these apprenticeships got in the way of his schooling, they were deeply influential to his lifelong belief in the injustice of unequal distribution of wealth. His education was erratic-though he read passionately and broadly, his father sustained an injury that forced Wells to work in various apprenticeships to support the family. Wells was born into a working class British family, the youngest of four children.

The war of the worlds book