Editing H. G. Wells (section)

==Literary influence and legacy==
[[File:H G Wells SWS 2906.jpg|right|thumb|upright|H.{{nbsp}}G. Wells as depicted in Gernsback's ''[[Science Wonder Stories]]'' in 1929]]
The science fiction historian [[John Clute]] describes Wells as "the most important writer the genre has yet seen", and notes his work has been central to both British and American science fiction.<ref name="jc">John Clute, ''Science Fiction :The Illustrated Encyclopedia''. Dorling Kindersley London, {{ISBN|0-7513-0202-3}} (p. 114–115).</ref> Science fiction author and critic [[Algis Budrys]] said Wells "remains the outstanding expositor of both the hope, and the despair, which are embodied in the technology and which are the major facts of life in our world".<ref name="budrys196809">{{cite magazine |last=Budrys |first=Algis |author-link=Algis Budrys |date=September 1968 |title=Galaxy Bookshelf |url=https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v27n02_1968-09#page/n185/mode/2up |magazine=[[Galaxy Science Fiction]] |pages=187–193}}</ref> He was nominated for the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1921, 1932, 1935, and 1946.<ref name="Nobel nominations"/> Wells so influenced real exploration of space that impact craters on Mars [[H. G. Wells (crater)|and the Moon]] were named after him:<ref name="Sagan">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/05/28/archives/growing-up-with.html |title=Growing up with Science Fiction |last=Sagan |first=Carl |author-link=Carl Sagan |date=1978-05-28 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=2018-12-12 |page=SM7 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Wells's genius was his ability to create a stream of brand new, wholly original stories out of thin air. Originality was Wells's calling card. In a six-year stretch from 1895 to 1901, he produced a stream of what he called "scientific romance" novels, which included ''[[The Time Machine]]'', ''[[The Island of Doctor Moreau]]'', ''[[The Invisible Man]]'', ''[[The War of the Worlds]]'' and ''[[The First Men in the Moon]]''. This was a dazzling display of new thought, endlessly copied since. A book like ''The War of the Worlds'' inspired every one of the thousands of alien invasion stories that followed. It burned its way into the psyche of mankind and changed us all forever.|source=Cultural historian [[John Higgs]], ''The Guardian''.<ref name="Higgs">{{cite news |last=Higgs |first=John |author-link=John Higgs |title=H.{{nbsp}}G. Wells's prescient visions of the future remain unsurpassed |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/13/hg-wells-visions-of-the-future-remain-unsurpassed |access-date=2019-03-19 |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=2016-08-13}}</ref>}}

[[File:Amazing stories quarterly 1928win.jpg|thumb|upright|Magazine reprint of Wells's 1910 [[dystopian]] science fiction ''[[When the Sleeper Wakes]]'']]
In the United Kingdom, Wells's work was a key model for the British "scientific romance", and other writers in that mode, such as [[Olaf Stapledon]],<ref>Andy Sawyer, "[William] Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950)", in ''Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction''. New York: Routledge, 2010. {{ISBN|0-203-87470-6}} (pp. 205–210).</ref> [[J. D. Beresford]],<ref name="rb">[[Richard Bleiler]], "John Davis Beresford (1873–1947)" in Darren Harris-Fain, ed. ''British Fantasy and Science Fiction Writers Before World War I''. Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1997. pp. 27–34. {{ISBN|0-8103-9941-5}}.</ref> [[S. Fowler Wright]],<ref>Brian Stableford, "Against the New Gods: The Speculative Fiction of S. Fowler Wright". in Against the New Gods and Other Essays on Writers of Imaginative Fiction Wildside Press LLC, 2009 {{ISBN|1-4344-5743-5}} (pp. 9–90).</ref> and [[Naomi Mitchison]],<ref>"Mitchison, Naomi", in ''Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature: A Checklist, 1700–1974: With Contemporary Science Fiction Authors II''. Robert Reginald, Douglas Menville, Mary A. Burgess. Detroit—Gale Research Company. {{ISBN|0-8103-1051-1}} p. 1002.</ref> all drew on Wells's example. Wells was also an important influence on British science fiction of the period after the Second World War, with [[Arthur C. Clarke]]<ref>Michael D. Sharp, ''Popular Contemporary Writers'', Marshall Cavendish, 2005 {{ISBN|0-7614-7601-6}} p. 422.</ref> and [[Brian Aldiss]]<ref>Michael R. Collings, ''Brian Aldiss''. Mercer Island, WA: Starmont House, 1986. {{ISBN|0-916732-74-6}} p. 60.</ref> expressing strong admiration for Wells's work. A self-declared fan of Wells, [[John Wyndham]], author of ''[[The Day of the Triffids]]'' and ''[[The Midwich Cuckoos]]'', echoes Wells's obsession with catastrophe and its aftermath.<ref>{{cite news |title=John Wyndham (1903-1969)|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/10/johnwyndham |access-date=29 October 2022 |work=The Guardian}}</ref> His early work (pre 1920) made Wells the literary hero of [[dystopian]] novelist [[George Orwell]].<ref>{{cite news |title=The George Orwell and H.{{nbsp}}G. Wells row: Gain and Loss in the Utopian and Dystopian Feud |url=https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/30172/ |access-date=29 October 2022 |publisher=[[Goldsmiths, University of London]]}}</ref> Among contemporary British science fiction writers, [[Stephen Baxter (author)|Stephen Baxter]], [[Christopher Priest (novelist)|Christopher Priest]] and [[Adam Roberts (British writer)|Adam Roberts]] have all acknowledged Wells's influence on their writing; all three are vice-presidents of the [[H. G. Wells Society]]. He also had a strong influence on British scientist [[J. B. S. Haldane]], who wrote ''[[Daedalus; or, Science and the Future]]'' (1924), "The Last Judgement" and "On Being the Right Size" from the essay collection ''Possible Worlds'' (1927), and ''Biological Possibilities for the Human Species in the Next Ten Thousand Years'' (1963), which are speculations about the future of human evolution and life on other planets. Haldane gave several lectures about these topics which in turn influenced other science fiction writers.<ref>{{cite journal |pmc=3327541 |pmid=18578028 |doi=10.1038/embor.2008.68 |volume=9 |title=Back to the future. Contemporary biopolitics in 1920s' British futurism |journal=EMBO Rep |pages=S59–S63 |last=Hughes |first=J. J. |date=2008 |issue=Suppl 1 | issn = 1469-221X}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/rightsize.pdf |title=On Being the Right Size |last=Haldane |first=J. B. S. |author-link=J. B. S. Haldane}}</ref>

[[File:Two complete science adventure books 1951win n4.jpg|thumb|upright|Wells's works were reprinted in American science fiction magazines as late as the 1950s.|left]]
In the United States, [[Hugo Gernsback]] reprinted most of Wells's work in the pulp magazine ''[[Amazing Stories]]'', regarding Wells's work as "texts of central importance to the self-conscious new genre".<ref name="jc"/> Later American writers such as [[Ray Bradbury]],<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.strandmag.com/the-magazine/interviews/ray-bradbury/ |title=Ray Bradbury |work=[[Strand Mag]] |date=2015-06-04}}</ref> [[Isaac Asimov]],<ref>{{cite book |title=In Memory Yet Green: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov 1920–1954. |location=[[Garden City, NY]] |publisher=[[Doubleday (publisher)|Doubleday]] |date=1979 |page=167}}</ref> [[Frank Herbert]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://members.multimania.co.uk/Fenrir/ctdinterviews.htm |title=Vertex Magazine Interview |access-date=2012-10-21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121021031705/http://members.multimania.co.uk/Fenrir/ctdinterviews.htm |archive-date=2012-10-21}} with Frank Herbert, by Paul Turner, October 1973, Volume 1, Issue 4.</ref> [[Carl Sagan]],<ref name="Sagan"/> and [[Ursula K. Le Guin]]<ref name="jh2">John Huntington, "Utopian and Anti-Utopian Logic: H.{{nbsp}}G. Wells and his Successors". ''Science Fiction Studies'', July 1982.</ref> all recalled being influenced by Wells.

[[Sinclair Lewis's]] early novels were strongly influenced by Wells's realistic social novels, such as ''[[The History of Mr Polly]]''; Lewis also named his first son Wells after the author.<ref>{{cite magazine|title=The Romance of Sinclair Lewis|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1992/10/08/the-romance-of-sinclair-lewis/|date=22 September 2017|magazine=The New York Review of Books}}</ref> Lewis nominated H.{{nbsp}}G. Wells for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932.<ref name="Nobel nominations"/>

In an interview with ''[[The Paris Review]]'', [[Vladimir Nabokov]] described Wells as his favourite writer when he was a boy and "a great artist".<ref name="Nabokov">{{cite news |url=https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4310/vladimir-nabokov-the-art-of-fiction-no-40-vladimir-nabokov |title=Vladimir Nabokov, The Art of Fiction No. 40 |last=Gold |first=Herbert |newspaper=[[The Paris Review]] |access-date=2017-02-09}}</ref> He went on to cite ''The Passionate Friends'', ''[[Ann Veronica]]'', ''The Time Machine'', and ''[[The Country of the Blind]]'' as superior to anything else written by Wells's British contemporaries. Nabokov said: "His sociological cogitations can be safely ignored, of course, but his romances and fantasies are superb."<ref name="Nabokov"/>
[[File:Herbert George Wells Postal stationery envelope Russia 2016 No 286.jpg|thumb|2016 illustrated postal envelope with an image from ''The War of the Worlds'', [[Russian Post]], commemorating the 150th anniversary of the author's birth]]
[[Jorge Luis Borges]] wrote many short pieces on Wells in which he demonstrates a deep familiarity with much of Wells's work.<ref>Borges, Jorge Luis. ''The Total Library''. Edited by Eliot Weinberger. London: Penguin Books, 1999. Pp. 150.</ref> While Borges wrote several critical reviews, including a mostly negative review of Wells's film ''Things to Come'',<ref>Borges, Jorge Luis. "Wells the Visionary" in ''The Total Library''. Edited by Eliot Weinberger. London: Penguin Books, 1999. Pp. 150.</ref> he regularly treated Wells as a canonical figure of fantastic literature. Late in his life, Borges included ''The Invisible Man'' and ''The Time Machine'' in his ''Prologue to a Personal Library'',<ref>{{cite web |title=Jorge Luis Borges Selects 74 Books for Your Personal Library {{pipe}} Open Culture |url=https://www.openculture.com/2015/03/jorge-luis-borges-personal-library.html |access-date=2022-12-29}}</ref> a curated list of 100 great works of literature that he undertook at the behest of the Argentine publishing house [[Emecé Editores|Emecé]]. Wells also inspired writers of continental European speculative fiction such as [[Karel Čapek]],<ref name="jh2"/> [[Mikhail Bulgakov]]<ref>Antoinette M. Bassett. ''H.G. Wells and Mikhail Bulgakov: A Study of Influence and Intertextuality''. University of Alaska Anchorage, 1996.</ref> and [[Yevgeny Zamyatin]].<ref name="jh2"/>

In 2021, Wells was one of six British writers commemorated on a [[Great Britain commemorative stamps 2020–2029#2021|series of UK postage stamps]] issued by [[Royal Mail]] to celebrate British science fiction.<ref name="Commemorate"/> Six classic science fiction novels were depicted, one from each author, with ''The Time Machine'' chosen to represent Wells.<ref name="Commemorate">{{cite news |title=Stamps to feature original artworks celebrating classic science fiction novels |url=https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/stamps-feature-original-artworks-celebrating-230100551.html |access-date=20 September 2022 |work=Yahoo|quote=Royal Mail has released images of original artworks being issued on a new set of stamps to celebrate six classic science fiction novels by British writers.}}</ref>