To some, author of The Time Machine H G Wells was an icon. To others he was intolerable and bad tempered. His demonic life once drove a whole generation along new and daring paths, and even in old age he insisted that people 'run the gauntlet of his iconoclasm'.
In this seminal biography, Vincent Brome recounts the rich fantastic cauldron of Wells' life - from his politics and writing to his complex and torn emotional life, and his painful, lingering death. Here was a man 'whose greatness lay in his ordinariness', but who was never truly ordinary.
About the Author
Vincent Brome was educated at Streatham Grammar and Elleston Schools. He started writing professionally at 13, and has since held a variety of jobs including feature writer, editor at Menu and Medical World magazines, and propagandist at the Ministry of Information during World War II. He has written over thirty books including novels, biographies, literary and historical studies, and plays for radio and television. His novels The Embassy and The Surgeon were international bestsellers, and have been translated into eleven languages. Brome has travelled very widely, and was present in Hungary during the 1956 uprising, an experience on which he based his novel The Revolution.
He has also been a regular contributor to radio, newspapers and magazines including The Observer, The Times and Sunday Times, The Guardian. The Spectator and The New Statesman (UK), and The Nation and The New York Times (USA). He lives in Central London.
