When was he born?
http://www.sff.net/people/james.van.pelt/wells/biography.htm
Sometimes called the father of modern science fiction, H.G. Wells was born on September 21, 1866 in Bromley, Kent, England. His father, a professional cricket player and shopkeeper, and his mother, a former lady’s maid, raised Wells with the idea that he would find a place in the work world that they were accustomed. He aspired to a different place in society.
His jobs and studies.
http://www.sff.net/people/james.van.pelt/wells/biography.htm
When he was thirteen, he left school to become a draper’s apprentice, a job his family expected would be proper for a boy of his station. The work repelled him, however. He worked briefly in a drugstore, returned for a stint as a draper’s assistant, then finally found a job as a teacher’s assistant in a grammar school. Education and academia suited him well. In 1884 he entered college with a scholarship to study biology. He was able to study under one of the great biology teachers of the time, Thomas Henry Huxley, and Wells graduated in 1888.
His influences.
http://www.sff.net/people/james.van.pelt/wells/biography.htm
The writings of Jules Verne undoubtably influenced Wells, and he wrote his first novel, The Time Machine, partly in response to this new kind of literature that Verne produced. The story appeared in various forms in magazines from 1888 to 1894 and was released in its current form in 1895. The book was successful, and Wells did not need to teach or worry about money from that time on.
As a writer.
http://www.biography.com/articles/H.-G.-Wells-39224?part=3
As a creative writer his reputation rests on the early science-fiction books and on the comic novels. In his science fiction, he took the ideas and fears that haunted the mind of his age and gave them symbolic expression as brilliantly conceived fantasy made credible by the quiet realism of its setting. In the comic novels, though his psychology lacks subtlety and the construction of his plots is often awkward, he shows a fund of humour and a deep sympathy for ordinary people. Wells’s prose style is always careless and lacks grace, yet he has his own gift of phrase and a true ear for vernacular speech, especially that of the lower middle class of London and southeastern England. His best work has a vigour, vitality, and exuberance unsurpassed, in its way, by that of any other British writer of the early 20th century.
Some important novels
http://www.sff.net/people/james.van.pelt/wells/biography.htm
Wells’ early novels continued in the science fiction mode of The Time Machine. The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War Between the Worlds (1898) cemented his position within the genre. For many readers, these early novels are the extent of Wells’ writing. He’s the “time machine guy” or the “martian guy.” Wells, however, wrote short stories, mainstream fiction and non-fiction essays his entire life, most of them espousing in some form or another his views on humanity, society and the direction he saw the world going. Some of these works were also science fictional in nature.
Curiosities
http://www.slais.ubc.ca/COURSES/libr500/03-04-wt1/assignments/www/D_Berry/Wellsbio.htm
He hated working at the drapers, and soon managed to get out of it, but drifted from one job to another over the succeeding years. He became intrigued by socialism, and he debated political topics during his years at the Normal School of Science, in London, where he studied for a B.S. degree. Unfortunately, he failed his final examination and was forced to leave the school. It was not until 1889 that he was able to earn an external degree in zoology from the University of London (Ruddick, 16-19).
In 1891 he married his cousin, Isabel Wells, but grew bored with her and eloped with another young woman (Amy Catherine Robbins, whom he called “Jane”) in 1894. The following year he divorced Isabel and married Jane.