The Young H.G. Wells: Changing the World

Award-winning British journalist and biographer Tomalin (Jane Austen: A Life; Charles Dickens: A Life) aims her sights at yet another high-profile British writer of classics in this production narrated by Anne Flosnik. This time, it is the man considered the Father of Science Fiction: H.G. Wells. From his humble beginnings as the son of a domestic gardener/shopkeeper/professional cricket player and a domestic servant, Herbert George Wells managed to cobble together an education that focused on science and read most of the important books of his time. An affirmed agnostic and socialist, he was a husband who was not faithful, a father several times over, and a voracious writer with strong opinions on many topics of his time who often expressed his vision of what he felt the future held for humankind. Flosnik uses a reserved approach to narrating the events of his life, keeping a stiff upper lip, yet changing the pace slightly when excited or concerned, such as during his successes in publishing) or when he thought he was dying when he was hemorrhaging.