 Hello and welcome to our video summarizing all you need to know about the novel The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. My name is Bani and in this video we will look at The War of the Worlds, specifically beginning with some context related to the author H.G. Wells, as well as ideas at the time this novel was written that you will need to be aware of. We will then look into the novel's plot in detail and examine the necessary information you need to know about it. Before looking at each character in the novel in depth, key themes related to this novel as well as important symbols. This video is really useful, especially if you are studying The War of the Worlds as part of your English coursework or exams, as we will go into the details you need to know to get top marks. So let's get started. Beginning with the overview The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H.G. Wells, first serialized in 1897 by Pearson's magazine in the UK and by Cosmopolitan magazine in the US. The novel's first appearance in hardcover was in 1898 from publisher William Heineman of London. Written between 1895 and 1897, it is one of the earliest stories to detail a conflict between mankind and an extraterrestrial race. The novel is the first person narrative of both an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and of his younger brother in London, as Southern England is invaded by Martians. The novel is one of the most commented on works in science fiction canon. Moving on to the plot summary. The War of the Worlds chronicles the events of a Martian invasion as experienced by an unidentified male narrator and his brother. The story begins a few years before the invasion. During the astronomical opposition of 1894, when Mars is closer to Earth than usual, several observatories spot flashes of light on the surface of Mars. The narrator witnesses one of these flashes through a telescope at an observatory in Ottershire, Surrey, England. He immediately alerts his companion Ogilvy, the well-known astronomer. Ogilvy quickly dismisses the idea that the flashes are an indication of life on Mars. He assures the narrator that the chances against anything man-like on Mars are a million to one. The flashes continue unexplained for several nights. Early one morning, a falling star appears over England. It crashes on Horsel Common, a large expansive public land near the narrator's home in Maybury. When the narrator visits the crash site, he finds a crowd of about 20 people gathered around a large cylindrical object embedded in a sand pit. The object is made of metal and appears to be hollow. The narrator immediately suspects that the object came from Mars. After observing it for some time, the narrator returns to his home in Maybury. By the next time he visits the crash site, news of the landing has spread and the number of spectators has increased significantly. The narrator's second visit is far more eventful than his first. The cylinder opens and he gets his first glimpse of the Martians. A big grayish rounded bulk, the size perhaps of a beer, was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. As it bulged up and got the light, it glistened like wet leather. The whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank tentacular appendage crept the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in the air. After a second Martian makes its way out of the cylinder, the narrator runs away in terror. While he hides in the woods, a small group of men, including Ogilvy, approach the cylinder with a white flag. As they're near the Martians, there is a great flash of light and the men carrying the flag are instantly incinerated. Several more flashes follow, causing the spectators to scatter. The narrator escapes back to his house, where he tells his wife what he's seen. Shortly thereafter, military forces arrive on Horsale Common, and a second cylinder lands near the first. Fighting soon breaks out between the soldiers and the Martians. The following evening, after it becomes apparent that the soldiers are no match for the Martians, and that he trace, the narrator resolves to take his wife east to Leatherhead, where he believes they will be safe. Using a horse-tron cart, rented from an oblivious innkeeper, the narrator successfully transports his wife and a few of his belongings to Leatherhead. Later that night, he leaves to return the cart. As he approaches Maybury, he encounters a terrifying sight. A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them aside in its career. Stupified by the sight of the Martian fighting machine, the narrator crashes the cart, thereby breaking the horse's neck. The narrator just barely escapes detection by the Martians. Against all odds, he manages to make it back to his house. While sheltering there, he encounters a fleeing artillery man. Cut off from his wife by a cylinder between Maybury and Leatherhead, the narrator decides to travel with the artillery man. However, they are quickly separated. After a terrifying encounter with the Martians on River Thames, the narrator finds an abandoned boat, which he uses to paddle toward London. Overcome by fever and faintness, he stops at Walden, where he meets the curate who will become his companion for the next few weeks. At this point, the narrative changes focus, and the narrator begins to tell the story of the invasion, as it was experienced by his younger brother, a medical student, also unnamed in London. According to the narrator, news of the Martian invasion was slow to spread in London. Two days after the initial attack, most Londoners were either unaware, off or unconcerned about the danger presented by the Martians. Only after the Martians march upon London, do the inhabitants begin to panic. The Martians release a poisonous black smoke over the city, forcing civilians to evacuate. While attempting to flee to Essex, the narrator's brother catches a group of men in the act of robbing two women. The brother bravely intervenes and saves the women. They allow him to join him in their carriage, and the three of them set out for the southeastern coast of England. After a series of unfortunate events, the party reaches the coast, where they combine their money and buy passage to Ostend, Belgium, on a steamer. As the steamer pulls away from the shore, the brother watches a spectacular fight between a warship, the torpedo ram HMSD Thunderchild, and three Martian fighting machines. Meanwhile, the narrator and the curate plumb the houses in search of food. At Sheen, they find a well-stocked house and decide to stop for a quick rest. They're almost immediately disturbed by a blinding glare of vivid green light. Suddenly, a cylinder strikes the ground outside, and the narrator is knocked unconscious. When he comes to, the curate tells him not to move, because the Martians are outside. The narrator and the curate decide to stay in the ruins of the house. After about a week of watching the Martians and rationing what little food they have left, their relationship begins to deteriorate. The curate eventually becomes hysterical, and the narrator is supposed to knock him unconscious. The scuffle is overheard by a Martian, who, much to the narrator's horror, stretches a tentacle into the ruins. The tentacle drags the curate's unconscious body out of the house and nearly grabs the narrator too. The narrator hides, alone, in the ruins for six days. When he finally emerges from the house, he discovers that the Martians have abandoned the cylinder. After observing the wreckage around the house, the stunned narrator begins walking toward London. On the way, he once again encounters the artillery man, who fills him in on the events of the past two weeks. According to the artillery man, the Martians have destroyed London and set up a camp at the north end of the city. He claims it is all over. Humankind is simply beat. The artillery man eagerly tells the narrator about his plan to live beneath London and build a community of like-minded survivors in the sewers. The narrator considers joining the artillery man, but he ultimately decides against it. He leaves, continuing on his journey toward London. The path to London is marked by mass destruction. As he walks, the narrator seals piles upon piles of bodies. In the distance, he hears a Martian chanting Ula and follows the sound of its voice. Ready to end it all, the narrator approaches a fighting machine, only to discover that the Martian inside is already dead. As it turns out, all of the Martians are dead, slain by the putrefactive and diseased bacteria against which their systems were unprepared. The narrator is overwhelmed and he suffers a three-day nervous breakdown. After a kind family nurses him back to health, he makes his way back to Maybury. At his home, he discovers that his wife has also survived. In the epilogue, the narrator considers the significance of the Martian invasion and warns future generations to repair themselves. Moving on to the character analysis. The narrator. The novel is told through first-hand account by an unnamed narrator. He is a philosopher and a hobbyist astronomer. He is also one of the first to notice some oddities occurring on the Martian landscape and to make the correlation that the Martians are indeed launching an invasion. The narrator manages to survive past the end of the invasion, mostly unharmed. Despite the relative stoicism he displays throughout the novel, prolonged exposure to the atrocities that the alien invaders inflict upon humanity, however, takes a serious toll on his sanity. He experiences a temporary mental breakdown but recovers eventually after receiving care from other survivors. Martians. An aggressive, merciless, mentally-scientifically and technologically-advanced alien species trying to flee from their dying planet. They are conquerors from the get-go and they make it clear to the Earth's populace that cohabitation is not an option for them. Attacking with advanced weapons such as heat rays and biological agents. Human weapons are useless against their war machines and they attack indiscriminately. Martians greatly resemble Earth's octopi because of their tentacles and radial symmetry. They feed upon humans by grotesquely draining them of bodily fluids then injecting it directly into themselves. Despite older advancements, a common strain of Earth bacteria kills them all. The Artillery Man. The unnamed artillery man is separated from the rest of his combat unit when the horse he is riding falls into a ditch. He luckily escapes the heat rays of the Martian war machines and ends up wandering into the garden of the narrator where he is taken in and cared for. When the danger escalates and the need to escape becomes necessary, his military training, caution and prudence prove to be exceedingly useful in their survival across the battle-ravaged landscape. He eventually rediscover survivors from his unit and he rejoins them to fight the Martian oppressors once more. The narrator encounters the artillery man again on Putney Hill, a completely changed man, caring more for booze, games and idealistic grandiose plans. It may be speculated that he has, much like the narrator, experienced great trauma that has affected his mental condition. The narrator then paths ways with him permanently, his outcome undetermined. The Curate. A cowardly, weak-willed member of an undetermined religious order who, much like the narrator and the artillery man, remains unnamed for the duration of the novel. The lack of specifics with regard to which religious order he belongs to could very well be a deliberate act of the author as well as a representation of his own opinion of organized religion in general, which is to say a very poor opinion. He differs with the narrator constantly, often refusing to comply with sensible requests, such as rationing supplies or behave sensibly when the need for calm is paramount. Despite this, though he refuses to part with the narrator, perhaps due to his spinelessness, he meets his end when his refusal to keep quiet attracts the attention of a Martian, sentinel dragging him away to an uncertain doom. Narrator's Brother. A character not directly mentioned but rather spoken off through the narrator. He is a medical student and his history is told to narrate the events that took place in London. The narrator reports that Brother met up with the narrator's wife and another character, George Evvinstone's sister, and they decide to travel together after escaping London. Brother is a sensible, prudent character. He also proves himself to be a critical thinker and a morally upright fellow, refusing to pick up money scattered on the ground, realizing that currency is now obsolete, and that picking up the money would cost them crucial time. This treatment of money as a passe trapping of the former world proves to be correct as it allows them to escape just as a Martian patrol comes upon a man gathering money. He is promptly vaporized with heat rays as he tries to pocket the useless trinkets. The Narrator's Wife. The narrator's wife's presence is terribly indirect. She is mentioned rather than actually taking part in the dialogue. The narrator's movements, bearing and reasons for doing things, are spurred on by his concern for her, rather than through her involvement. He verbalizes her worry for the then looming Martian threat during a dinnertime discussion with the narrator, via the narrator's recounting. Despite all the carnage and deaths, the narrator and his wife are reunited at the end of the novel. Ogilvy, an astronomer who first tells the narrator about the strange explosions seen on Mars in the days leading up to the alien invasion. Ogilvy invites the narrator one night to view the anomaly through his telescope, and the narrator witnesses a reddish flash at the edge of the planet. Although neither he nor Ogilvy know it at the time, this flash is actually caused by the launching of the Martian Cylinders, which have already become their journey to Earth. When the narrator asks Ogilvy about the probability of alien life existing, the astronomer says the chances against anything man-like on Mars are a million to one. He also tells the narrator that any living being from Mars would be unable to survive on Earth due to vast differences in the planet's gravitational fields. Despite his assuredness, Ogilvy is one of the first humans to die when the Martians arrive. In an attempt to communicate with the aliens, he and a small group of men, including Henderson, a journalist from London, approach the cylinder while waving a white flag. In response, the Martians decimate the men with heat ray guns, instantly burning them to a char. Henderson, a friend of Ogilvy and a journalist by profession, he is tasked with informing the general public of the first wave of Martian invaders and the immediate threat that the mysterious Cylinders bring. He accompanies Ogilvy in his squaring efforts as he tries to excavate and salvage a Martian Cylinder for research purposes. Landlord, the Landlord character is written in similar fashion to the narrator's wife in that he too remains unnamed throughout the novel and is a quasi-character who interacts with the plot and the main characters by how he affects the narrator's actions and choices. He is mentioned in the narrator's commentary of how he assists or rather tries to assist the narrator by lending him, his dog-got, completely oblivious to the real extent of the Martian invasion. The narrator does not give much detail of how the landlord dies but he does make mention that the landlord is at least given a burial. Moving on to the theme analysis, the theme of hierarchy. The Martians hold dominion over England during their short stay in the War of the Worlds. If not for the bacteria that eventually kills them, it seems certain that they would go on to rule the animal kingdom, replacing humans at the top of the world's pecking order. As a result of the three shuffling of the hierarchy, the Martians presence brings about significant changes amongst humans. Amidst the chaos of the Martian attack, many characters lose all sense of order and in some cases decency. Conversely, others seem to commit themselves even more devoutly to the hierarchies and forms of order to which they've always adhered. By highlighting this range of reactions, in addition to examining the temporary demotion of humankind to the status of a subordinate species, HD Worlds reveals that humanity's sense of order and control is perhaps more fragile than people would like to think. Unable to reckon with the horror of the Martian invasion, Englanders instead try to preserve the social structures they relied upon for their entire lives. The narrator remarks upon this by saying, The most extraordinary thing to my mind of all the strange and wonderful things that happened upon that Friday was the dovetailing of the commonplace habits of our social order with the first beginnings of the series of events that was to toggle that social order headlong. In addition to prompting a reshuffling of power amongst humans, the Martians attack gives the narrator a new perspective on the hierarchies of the natural world. Upon re-emerging after two weeks of hiding underground, he finds himself dizzyed by the realisation that humans have fallen from their position as the earth's dominant species. He writes, A sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals under the Martian heel, the unknown. With its lush descriptions of otherworldly creatures and unfathomable machines, the War of the Worlds underscores that all alien stories are, at their root, stories about discomfort with and fear of the unknown. World stories to have the invaders hail from mass took the genre one step further, emphasising his countrymen's hysterical fear of the foreigner, or the other, making their way into England. The Martians, for their part, embody the mysteriousness and inscrutability that characterise the other in the imaginations of the people. As such, these creatures are the ultimate manifestation of otherness. In turn, the public's uncontrollable fear of the invaders mirrors the xenophobia that was rampant throughout England in the late 19th century. The narrator's overwhelming fear of the Martians and the mystery that surrounds them throws him into a state of confusion about even his own familiar surroundings. The fear, I felt, was no rational fear, he writes, but a panicked error not only of the Martians, but of the dusk and stillness all about me. Suddenly, with the introduction of an unknown species, he sees his world anew. He finds himself disoriented by simple things like the dusk and stillness of the surrounding landscape. This is perhaps because he's seeing the world through new eyes, imagining what earth must look like to these foreigners. It's worth noting that he admits his fear is irrational, since it suggests that wealth understands that it's necessary to come to terms with the presence of an outsider, even when doing so may bring on a state of panic or terror. The narrator's willingness to step outside his limited viewpoint and re-examine his immediate reality shows that the Martians have a strong and profound effect on human psychology, their arrival from self-reflection and evaluation. For instance, their presence causes the narrator to observe the following about himself. At times, I suffer from the strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world about me. The theme of information. Information is a vital resource during the Martians' attack on England in the War of the Worlds, and how information is disseminated becomes a key theme, as the narrator makes clear early in the novel that the newspapers are able to sway people's minds. As various bits of information work their way through England, it becomes evident that the dissemination of information doesn't always serve the end of protecting people. Instead, people often pass along facts and fragments of news to comfort one another, or even to make a profit. This, however, only puts humanity at a disadvantage and worlds demonstrates that people often assuage unpleasant thoughts by whatever means possible, distracting themselves by telling soothing lies, or by focusing on secondary concerns like financial gain. In many cases throughout the War of the Worlds, the newspapers fail to accurately report on the Martian invasion, especially during the first several days. Initial telegraphs about the incident embody the cavalier attitude most people have at the beginning of the invasion. One even reads, formidable as they seem to be, the Martians have not moved from the bits into which they've fallen, and indeed seem incapable of doing so. Probably this is due to the relative strength of the Earth's gravitational energy. The narrator adds to this account, writing, on the last text, the leader writers expanded very comfortingly. His use of the word comfortingly is especially important here because it illustrates how eager people are to seek refuge in the reassuring words of supposed experts and leader writers, that is senior journalists. Suddenly, any sense of urgency falls away when a specialist delivers information regardless of how accurate this information is. It's not hard to see then that the news can have a very dangerous effect on the population, since an accurate understanding and a sense of urgency are absolutely critical in any emergency, let alone an alien invasion. If people believe there is no true cause for alarm, they won't adequately prepare for the very real danger that they face. Theme of Evolution In the War of the Worlds, Worlds explores the extremes of what is possible under evolution and natural selection. Compared to humans, the Martians are highly advanced in their technology, suggesting that their evolutionary history is also longer than that of humans. Although the narrator says they may be descended from beings not unlike humans, it's clear that Martians are much further along in their process of evolution than humans. Despite their sophisticated development, however, they fall prey to the simplest of enemies, earthly bacteria. Indeed, it is ironic that their undoing comes in the form of a small and ordinary menace against which humans, regardless of their lesser powers, have developed a tolerance. In this way, Worlds shows readers that evolutionary progress and development isn't magical, but rather a process that plays out according to a specific set of environmental circumstances. As such, Worlds' novel is as much a demonstration of and argument for the truth of evolution as it is an entertaining tale of survival. Moving on to some important quotes from the text. Quote, no one would have believed in the last years of the 19th century that this world was being watched, keenly and closely, by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own. Unquote. The novel's opening lines set the stage for the collision between science and fiction. The quote is also quite effective for its chilling presentation of a situation upon which it constructs its eventual horror. At the time it was written, and among more than a few today, the idea of the Earth being under surveillance by creatures from beyond the stars was possible enough to be absolutely terrifying. Quote, yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the pastes that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. Unquote. Every science fiction movie or TV show or play in which alien creatures compare their superiority to humans by comparing the superiority of humans to a meabay traces back to this quote right here. And when you add in the fact that those out there spying on us are exponentially advanced in terms of intelligence and innovation, the terror only gets ramped up. Quote, by three, people were being trampled and crushed even in bishopsgate street. A couple of hundred yards or more from Liverpool Street Station, revolvers were fired, people stabbed, and the policemen who had been sent to direct the traffic, exhausted and infuriated, but breaking the heads of the people they were called out to protect. Unquote. It is beginning to appear as though the Martians hardly need to engage any weapons or outright offensive assaults. Just show up, put on a show for a few hours and let human nature and the inherent sociopathy in low enforcement run its natural course. Quote, this isn't a war, it never was a war any more than there's a war between men and ants. Unquote. Once again Wells is making the point that intelligence is evolutionary. At this point in time, the Martians are well advanced beyond humans in terms of knowledge, but that knowledge could not have blossomed fully intact. Darwinian evolution is the transcendence of man to Superman. Within this realization that man can no longer be considered the most valuable creature in the universe are two important points. Mankind can continue to evolve until they reach the state the Martians presently occupy, provided they survive the attack. But that also means that the ants below could potentially evolve into a significantly higher elevated state of consciousness as well. Quote, the most extraordinary thing to my mind, of all the strange and wonderful things that happened upon that Friday, was the dovetailing of the commonplace habits of our social order with the first beginnings of the series of events that was to topple that social order headlong. Unquote. To a certain extent this observation is what the book is really all about. The war taking place is less one between two different worlds than between the worlds of the best and the worst of the human race. The best of the human race is exhibited throughout the story in many small ways, each one of which falls apart in the face of panic and confusion. The social order can last only as long as the infrastructure of that order remains in place. Take away access to transportation, communication and food. Everything else is ultimately up for grabs by the most primal part of humanity. Quote, and scattered about it, some in their overturned war machines, some in the now rigid handling machines and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row were the Martians, dead, slain by the putrefactive and diseased bacteria against which their systems were unprepared. Unquote. This is the way the novel ends, not with a bang but a whimper. Just as so many of the most infamous criminals of all time have been captured, not due to concerted investigative techniques, but by sheer luck as a result of their obliviousness to a broken taillight or a stop sign, so are the Martians conquered, not through concerted military response, but by their own ignorance of their lack of resistance to earthbound bacteria. Kind of anticlimactic in a way, kind of pure creative genius in another. Moving on to a short biography of H.G. Wells. H.G. Wells in full Herbert George Wells was born on 21st September 1866 in Kent, England and died on 13th August 1946 in London. H.G. Wells was an English novelist, journalist, sociologist and historian best known for such science fiction novels as The Time Machine and The War of the Wells and such comic novels as Tuna Bunga and The History of Mr. Polly. His early life, Wells was the son of domestic servants turned small shopkeepers. He grew up under the continual threat of poverty and at age 14 after a very inadequate education supplemented by his inexhaustible love of reading, he was apprenticed to a draper in Windsor. His employers soon dismissed him and he became assistant to a chemist. Then to another draper and finally in 1883 an Usher at Midhurst Grammar School. At 18 he won a scholarship to study biology at the Normal School, later Royal College of Science in South Kensington London, where D.H. Huxley was one of his teachers. He graduated from London University in 1888 becoming a science teacher and undergoing a period of ill health and financial worries. The later aggravated by his marriage in 1891 to his cousin, Isabel Mary Wells. The marriage was not a success and in 1894 Wells ran off with Amy Catherine Robbins, a former pupil who in 1895 became his second wife. Early Writings Wells first published book was a textbook of biology in 1893. With his first novel The Time Machine which was immediately successful he began a series of science fiction novels that revealed him as a writer of marked originality and an immense variety of ideas. The Wonderful Visit, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War of the Worlds, The First Men in the Moon and The Food of the Gods. He also wrote many short stories which were collected in the Stolen Basilisk, The Platinum Story and Tales of Space and Time. For a time he acquired a reputation as a prophet of the future and indeed in the war in the air he foresaw certain developments in the military use of aircraft. But his imagination flourished at its best not in the manner of comparatively mechanical anticipations of Jules Verne but in the astronomical fantasies of the first men in the moon and The War of the Worlds from the latter of which the image of the Martian has passed into popular mythology. Behind his inventiveness lay a passionate concern for man and society which increasingly broke into the fantasy of his science fiction often diverting it into satire and sometimes as in The Food of the Gods destroying its credibility. Eventually Wells decided to abandon science fiction for comic novels of lower middle class life most notably in Love and Mr. Lewisham published in 1900, Kip's The Story of a Simple Soul in 1905 and The History of Mr. Polly in 1910. In these novels and in Dono Bangue he drew on memories of his own earlier life and through the thoughts of inarticulate yet often ambitious heroes revealed the hopes and frustrations of clerks, shop assistants and underpaid teachers who had rarely before been treated in fiction with such sympathetic understanding. In these novels too he made his live list most persuasive comment on the problems of western society that was soon to become his main preoccupation. The somber vision of a dying world in the time machine shows that in his long-term view of humanity's prospects Wells felt much of the pessimism prevalent in the 1890s. In his short-term view however his study of biology led him to hope that human society would evolve into higher thumbs and with anticipations published in 1901, Mankind in the Making in 1903 and a modern utopia published in 1905 he took his place in the British public's mind as a leading preacher of the doctrine of social progress. About this time too he became an active socialist and in 1903 joined the Fabian society though he soon began to criticize its methods. The bitter quarrel he precipitated by his unsuccessful attempt to rest control of the Fabian society from George Bernard Shaw and Sydney and Beatrice Webb in 1906 and 2007 is retold in his novel The New Machiavelli in 1911 in which the webs are parodied as the Baileys. Middle and late works after about 1906 the Pamphotea and the novelist were in conflict in Wells and only the history of Mr. Polly and the light-hearted Bill B can be considered primarily as fiction. His later novels are mainly discussions of social or political themes that show little concern for the novel as a literary form. Wells himself affected not to care about the literary merit of his work and he rejected the tutelage of the American novelist Henry James saying, I would rather be called a journalist than an artist. Indeed his novel Boone included a spiteful parody of James. His next novel Mr. Brittling sees it through though touched by the prejudice and short-sightedness of wartime gives a brilliant picture of the English people in World War One. World War One shook Wells' faith in even short-term human progress and in subsequent works he modified his conception of social evolution putting forward the view that man could only progress if he would adapt himself to changing circumstances through knowledge and education. To help bring about this process of adaptation Wells began an ambitious work of popular education of which the main products were the outline of history, the science of life, co-written with Julian Huxley and G.B. Wells, his eldest son by his second wife and the work Wealth and Happiness of Mankind published in 1932. At the same time he continued to publish works of fiction in which his gifts of narrative and dialogue give way almost entirely to polemics. His sense of humor reappears however in the reminiscences of his experiment in autobiography published in 1934. In 1933, Wells published a novelized version of a film script, The Shape of Things to Come. Wells' version reverts to the utopianism of some earlier books but as a whole his outlook grew steadily less optimistic and some of his later novels contained much that is bitterly satiric. Fear of a tragic wrong turning in the development of the human race to which he had early given imaginative expression in the grotesque animal mutations of the island of Dr. Moreau dominates the shot novels and fables he wrote in the late 1930s. Wells was now ill and aging. With the outbreak of World War II he lost all confidence in the future and in Mind at the End of its tether published in 1945 he depicts a bleak vision of a world in which nature has rejected and is destroying humankind. H. G. Wells' Legacy inspired of an awareness of possible world catastrophe that underlay much of his earlier work and flared up again in old age. Wells in his lifetime was regarded as the chief literary spokesman of the liberal optimism that preceded World War I. No other writer has got so vividly the energy of this period. Its adventurousness, its feeling of release from the conventions of Victorian thought and propriety. Wells' influence was enormous both on his own generation and on that which immediately followed it. None of his contemporaries did more to encourage revolt against Christian tenets and accepted codes of behaviour especially as regards to sex in which both in his books and in his personal life he was a persistent advocate of an almost complete freedom. Though in many ways hasty, ill-tempered and contradictory, Wells was undeviating and fearless in his efforts for social equality, world peace and what he considered to be the future good of humanity. 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 fond of humour and a deep sympathy for ordinary people. Wells' 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. So that's all for now, if you found this video useful we would really love it if you could give it a thumbs up. 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