“TIME TRAVELER.” “Time machine.” These phrases, now familiar staples of science fiction, wowed readers when they first appeared in H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine: An Invention (1895). In that and other remarkably creative novels, Wells (1866–1946) combined his training as a biologist with his concerns for the fate of humankind. The results have become classics of early science fiction: books like The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898). Now if you’ve got the time, test yourself with this quick H. G. Wells quiz.
1. What were the two races descended from humans called in The Time Machine?
2. In The Island of Dr. Moreau, what controversial research method had caused Dr. Moreau to be “howled out of” England?
3. From what planet are the invaders in The War of the Worlds?
4. Why is Orson Welles’s 1938 radio performance of War of the Worlds considered the most famous radio broadcast of all time?
5. As a biology student, Wells studied under Thomas Henry Huxley, the grandfather of Aldous Huxley and an outspoken proponent of which famous scientist’s theories?
ANSWERS
1. The Morlocks and the Eloi. The Morlocks, descendants of the working class, lived underground and ate Eloi, a gentle, helpless race descended from the rich.
2. Vivisection—surgery and experimentation on live animals. In Wells’s day, the morality and scientific value of vivisection was a hot topic for debate.
3. Mars. Like many of his creations, Wells’s Martian invaders became a cliché of later science fiction writing and films.
4. Because listeners believed that it was a real newscast about a Martian invasion! Howard Koch had adapted Wells’s novel to be read as a series of emergency news broadcasts about invading aliens, and the actor Orson Welles’s performance alarmed many listeners—more than a million, according to a study by the sociologist Hadley Cantril.
5. Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution had a heavy influence on Wells’s writing. Huxley called himself “Darwin’s Bulldog.”