Editing H. G. Wells (section)

===Personal life===
[[File:MayburyRoad h.g.wells house.jpg|thumb|upright|left|141 Maybury Rd, [[Woking]], where Wells lived from May 1895 until late 1896<ref name="celebWoking-HGW">{{cite web |url=http://www.celebratewoking.info/legacywellsinwoking/HG_WellsandWoking |title=H.{{nbsp}}G. Wells and Woking |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=2016 |website=Celebrate Woking |publisher=Woking Borough Council |access-date=5 March 2017 |quote=H.{{nbsp}}G. Wells arrived in Woking in May 1895. He lived at 'Lynton', Maybury Road, Woking, which is now numbered 141 Maybury Road. Today, there is an English Heritage blue plaque displayed on the front wall of the property, which marks his period of residence.}}</ref>]]

In 1891, Wells [[cousin marriage|married his cousin]] Isabel Mary Wells (1865–1931; from 1902 Isabel Mary Smith).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.vintag.es/2017/05/they-did-what-15-famous-people-who.html |title=They Did What? 15 Famous People Who Actually Married Their Cousins |access-date=2019-08-24}}</ref> The couple agreed to separate in 1894, when he had fallen in love with one of his students, [[Catherine Wells|Amy Catherine Robbins]] (1872–1927; later known as Jane), with whom he moved to [[Woking]], Surrey, in May 1895. They lived in a rented house, 'Lynton' (now No. 141), Maybury Road, in the town centre for just under 18 months and married at St Pancras register office in October 1895.<ref name="WIW-WBC">{{cite book |title=Wells In Woking: 150th Anniversary 1866–2016: Free Souvenir Programme |url=http://www.celebratewoking.info/legacywellsinwoking/programme.pdf |location=[[Woking, Surrey]] |publisher=[[Woking Borough Council]] |pages=4–5 |date=2016 |access-date=2017-03-05}}</ref>{{r|batchelor|p=165}} His short period in Woking was perhaps the most creative and productive of his whole writing career; while there, he planned and wrote ''[[The War of the Worlds]]'' and ''[[The Time Machine]]'', completed ''[[The Island of Doctor Moreau]]'', wrote and published ''[[The Wonderful Visit]]'' and ''[[The Wheels of Chance]]'', and began writing two other early books, ''[[When the Sleeper Wakes]]'' and ''[[Love and Mr Lewisham]]''.<ref name="WIW-WBC"/><ref name="GoogleRiddle">Before the 143rd anniversary of Wells's birth, [[Google]] published a cartoon riddle series with the solution being the coordinates of Woking's nearby Horsell Common—the location of the Martian landings in ''The War Of The Worlds''—described in newspaper article by {{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2009/sep/21/google-hgwells-doodle-mystery |title=H.{{nbsp}}G. Wells – Google reveals answer to teaser doodles |last=Schofield |first=Jack |date=21 September 2009 |work=[[The Guardian]] |access-date=5 March 2017}}</ref>

[[File:The Works of H G Wells Volume 4 (page 10 crop).jpg|thumb|upright|Wells's second wife, Amy Catherine "Jane" Wells]]

In late summer 1896, Wells and Jane moved to a larger house in [[Worcester Park]], near [[Kingston upon Thames]], for two years; this lasted until his poor health took them to Sandgate, near [[Folkestone]], where he constructed a large family home, [[Spade House]], in 1901. He had two sons with Jane: [[G. P. Wells|George Philip]] (known as "Gip"; 1901–1985) and Frank Richard (1903–1982){{r|wagar|p=295}} (grandfather of film director [[Simon Wells]]). Jane died on 6 October 1927, in [[Great Dunmow|Dunmow]], at the age of 55, which left Wells devastated. She was cremated at [[Golders Green]], with friends of the couple present including [[George Bernard Shaw]].{{r|hammond|p=64}}

Wells had multiple love [[affair]]s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lynn|first=Andrea |title=Shadow Lovers: The Last Affairs of H.{{nbsp}}G. Wells |date=2001 |publisher=[[Westview Press|Westview]] |location=[[Boulder, CO]] |isbn=978-0-8133-3394-6 |pages=10; 14; 47 et sec |url=https://archive.org/details/shadowloverslast00lynn/page/10 |url-access=registration}}</ref> [[Dorothy Richardson]] was a friend with whom he had a brief affair which led to a pregnancy and miscarriage, in 1907. Wells's wife had been a schoolmate of Richardson.<ref>{{cite book |last=Fromm |first=Gloria G. |date=1977 |title=Dorothy Richardson: A Biography |publisher=[[University of Illinois Press]] |location=[[Urbana, Illinois|Urbana]] |isbn=978-0-252006-31-9 |page=xxx}}</ref> In December 1909, he had a daughter, Anna-Jane, with the writer [[Amber Reeves]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/apr/02/featuresreviews.guardianreview33|title=A room of her own|author = Margaret Drabble|work= The Guardian|date=1 April 2005}}</ref> whose parents, [[William Pember Reeves|William]] and [[Maud Pember Reeves]], he had met through the [[Fabian Society]]. Amber had married the barrister [[G. R. Blanco White]] in July of that year, as co-arranged by Wells. After [[Beatrice Webb]] voiced disapproval of Wells's "sordid intrigue" with Amber,<!-- with the daughter of veteran Fabian [[Sydney Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier|Sydney Olivier]], I think she warned Olivier in a letter to not let his four daughters be exposed to Wells and that the affair was that with Amber Reeves; see https://spartacus-educational.com/TUoliver.htm and links there--> he responded by lampooning Beatrice Webb and her husband Sidney Webb in his 1911 novel ''The New Machiavelli'' as 'Altiora and Oscar Bailey', a pair of short-sighted, bourgeois manipulators.<!--not sure if there was a reference for this; nothing followed it directly.--> Between 1910 and 1913, novelist [[Elizabeth von Arnim]] was one of his mistresses.<ref>{{cite ODNB |title=Arnim, Mary Annette [May] von [née Mary Annette Beauchamp; known as Elizabeth von Arnim; other married name Mary Annette Russell, Countess Russell] (1866–1941), novelist |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-35883 |access-date=2022-12-29 |date=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/35883}}</ref> In 1914, he had a son, [[Anthony West (author)|Anthony West]] (1914–1987), by the novelist and [[feminism|feminist]] [[Rebecca West]], 26 years his junior.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hgwells.htm |title=H.{{nbsp}}G. Wells |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |first=Petri |last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150221021820/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hgwells.htm |archive-date=21 February 2015 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In 1920–21, and intermittently until his death, he had a love affair with  the American [[birth control]] activist [[Margaret Sanger]].<ref>[https://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/articles/passionate_friends.php "The Passionate Friends: H.{{nbsp}}G. Wells and Margaret Sanger"], at the Margaret Sanger Paper Project.</ref>

Between 1924 and 1933, he partnered with the 22-year-younger Dutch adventurer and writer [[Odette Keun]], with whom he lived in ''Lou Pidou'', a house they built together in [[Grasse]], France. Wells dedicated his longest book to her (''[[The World of William Clissold]]'', 1926).<ref>{{cite web|last=Dixon|first=Kevin|date=2014-07-20|title=Odette Keun, H.{{nbsp}}G. Wells and the Third Way |url=http://www.theprsd.co.uk/2014/07/20/odette-keun-hg-wells-third-way/ |access-date=2022-12-29 |website=People's Republic of South Devon}}</ref> When visiting [[Maxim Gorky]] in Russia 1920, he had slept with Gorky's mistress [[Moura Budberg]],<ref>{{cite news |last=Hill |first=Amelia |date=2001-01-07 |title=The secret loves of H.{{nbsp}}G. Wells unmasked |work=[[The Observer]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jan/07/books.booksnews1 |access-date=2020-09-10 |issn=0029-7712}}</ref> then still Countess Benckendorf and 27 years his junior. In 1933, when she left Gorky and emigrated to London, their relationship renewed and she cared for him through his final illness. Wells repeatedly asked her to marry him, but Budberg strongly rejected his proposals.<!--probably could use a better source then the first of these two for the marriage proposals--><ref>{{cite web |last=Aron |first=Nina Renata |date=2017-05-18 |title=The impossibly glamorous life of this Russian baroness spy needs to be a movie |url=https://timeline.com/baroness-moura-budberg-spy-8cff5692c9c6 |access-date=2022-12-29 |website=[[Medium (website)|Medium]] |archive-date=16 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220516234100/https://timeline.com/baroness-moura-budberg-spy-8cff5692c9c6 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Dirda |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Dirda |date=2005-05-22 |title=Moura? Moura Budberg? Now whe{{nbsp}}... |newspaper=[[Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/2005/05/22/moura-moura-budberg-now-whe/c0e491b3-00fc-4e9e-9778-04641a72eab5/ |access-date=2022-12-29 |issn=0190-8286}}</ref>

In ''Experiment in Autobiography'' (1934), Wells wrote: "I was never a great amorist, though I have loved several people very deeply".<ref>{{cite book |last=Wells |first=H.G. |url=https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20100511 |title=H.G. Wells: Experiment in Autobiography |date=1934 |publisher=[[J. B. Lippincott & Co.]] |location=New York City |author-link=H. G. Wells}}</ref> [[David Lodge (author)|David Lodge]]'s novel ''A Man of Parts'' (2011){{snd}}a 'narrative based on factual sources' (author's note){{snd}}gives a convincing and generally sympathetic account of Wells's relations with the women mentioned above, and others.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lodge |first=David |author-link=David Lodge (author) |title=A Man of Parts |date=2011 |publisher=[[Random House]]}}</ref>