Herbert George Wells

Realism

Joseph) Rudyard Kipling

Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard (1865-1936), English writer and Nobel laureate, who wrote novels, poems, and short stories, mostly set in India and Burma (now known as Myanmar) during the time of British rule.

Kipling was born December 30, 1865, in Bombay (now Mumbai), India. His literary reputation was established by six stories of English life in India, published in India between 1888 and 1889, that revealed his profound identification with, and appreciation for, the land and people of India. Thereafter he traveled extensively in Asia and the United States, married Caroline Balestier, an American, in 1892, lived briefly in Vermont, and finally settled in England in 1903. He was a prolific writer; most of his work gained wide popularity. He received the 1907 Nobel Prize in literature, the first English author to be so honored. Kipling died January 18, 1936, in London.

Kipling is regarded as one of the greatest English short-story writers. As a poet he is remarkable for rhymed verse written in the slang used by the ordinary British soldier. His writings consistently project three ideas: intense patriotism, the duty of the English to lead lives of strenuous activity, and England's destiny to become a great empire. His insistent imperialism was an echo of the Victorian past of England.

Among Kipling's important short fictional works are Many Inventions (1893), The Jungle Book (1894), and The Second Jungle Book (1895), collections of animal stories, which many consider his finest writing; Just So Stories for Little Children (1902); and Puck of Pook's Hill (1906). The highly popular novels or long narratives include The Light That Failed (1891), about a blind artist; Captains Courageous (1897), a sea story; Stalky & Co. (1899), based on his boyhood experiences at the United Services College; and Kim (1901), a picaresque tale of Indian life that is generally regarded as his best long narrative. Among his collections of verse are Barrack-Room Ballads (1892), and The Five Nations (1903), published posthumously (1937), is an unfinished account of his unhappy childhood in an English foster home and at school.

Another tendency of the period is a sense and intensification of realism that was common to H. G. Wells, Bernard Shaw and John Galsworthy. These novelists attempted to represent the life of their time with great accuracy and in a critical, partly propagandistic spirit. Wells' novels, for example, often seem to be sociological investigations of the ills of modern civilization rather than self-contained stories.

Wells, Herbert George (1866-1946), English author and political philosopher, most famous for his science-fantasy novels with their prophetic depictions of the triumphs of technology as well as the horrors of 20th-century warfare.

Wells was born September 21, 1866, in Bromley, Kent. He produced more than 80 books. His novel The Time Machine (1895) mingled science, adventure, and political comment. Later works in this genre are The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898), each of these fantasies was made into a motion picture.

Wells also wrote novels devoted to character description. Among these are Kipps (1905) and The History of Mr. Polly (1910), which depict members of the lower middle class and their aspirations. Both recall the world of Wells's youth; the first tells the story of a struggling teacher, the second portrays a draper's assistant. In many of his other books Wells touch upon various social and psychological themes such as women's rights, condemnation of capitalism, wars and colonial policy.

Throughout his long life Wells was deeply concerned with and wrote a lot about the survival of contemporary society. For a time he was a member of the Fabian Society. He envisioned a utopia in which the vast and frightening material forces available to modern men and women would be rationally controlled for progress and for the equal good of all. His later works were increasingly pessimistic expressing the author's doubts about the ability of humankind to survive.

Wells died August 13, 1946, in London.

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