The H.G. Wells Society was founded by Dr. John Hammond in 1960. It has an international membership, and aims to promote a widespread interest in the life, work and thought of Herbert George Wells. The society publishes a peer-reviewed annual journal, The Wellsian, and issues a biannual newsletter. It has published a comprehensive bibliography of Wells’s published works, and other publications, including a number of works by Wells which have been out of print for many years.

The Society organises a weekend conference each year where aspects of Wells’s life and work are discussed in a congenial atmosphere.  

Topics discussed in recent years have included:

  • The Short Stories of H.G. Wells
  • Publishing and Publicising Wells
  • Wells’s Literary Friendships
  • The War of the Worlds (The proceedings of this conference appear in Foundation 77)
  • Wells and his Critics
  • Literature at War: H.G. Wells, Ford Madox Ford and Their Contemporaries
  • When the Lights Went Out: H.G. Wells and His World on the Eve of the War
  • Anticipations: H.G. Wells, Science Fiction and Radical Visions

In addition, the Society has organised two major international conferences. The first, under the title, H.G. Wells under Revision, was held in 1986 to mark the 40th anniversary of Wells’s death; the second, The Time Machine: Past, Present and Future was held in 1995 to mark the centenary of the publication of Wells’s first scientific romance.

Society Founder: Dr. John Hammond

President: Professor Patrick Parrinder

Vice-Presidents: Dr. Stephen Baxter, Dr. Sylvia Hardy, Professor David Lodge, Professor Bernard Loing, Christopher Priest, Dr. Michael Sherborne, Professor Dominic Wells, Professor Adam Roberts, Claire Tomalin

– The Constitution of the H.G. Wells Society –

Society officers:

Chairperson – Mark Egerton
Secretary – Brian Jukes
Treasurer – Eric Jukes
Editor of The Wellsian – To Be Appointed
Editor of the Newsletter – Eric Jukes
Membership, Publications, Distribution & Sales – Brian & Eric Jukes
Webmaster – Charles Keller

Available Now:
The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll
H. G. Wells, Introduction by Jeremy Withers
Publisher: Kings Langley Press
With illustrations by J. Ayton Symington
Colour Plates by Nikolay Fomin
Maps by Mike Hall
From the publisher’s website:

Kings Langley Press is proud to announce a new illustrated hardcover edition of The Wheels of Chance by H.G. Wells. Not as well known as Wells’s science-fiction works like The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds, this comic novel belongs to a distinct group of his works, together with Love and Mr. Lewisham, Kipps and Ann Veronica. These works, in Wells’s own words, study ‘personalities thwarted and crippled by the defects of our contemporary civilisation.’

Jeremy Withers is an associate professor of English Department at Iowa State University where his research focuses on the relationship between science fiction and transportation politics. His publications include The War of the Wheels: H. G. Wells and the Bicycle (2017) and Futuristic Cars and Space Bicycles: Contesting the Road in American Science Fiction (2020).

J. Ayton Symington (1861-1938), the original illustrator of the novel, was a highly accomplished Scottish artist and illustrator who was renowned for his detailed and realistic depictions of plants, animals, and landscapes. This edition contains forty of his pen-and-ink illustrations from the first edition, which was published in 1896 in London by J.M. Dent.

Nikolay Fomin is a freelance illustrator from the Ural region of Russia. He enjoys nature, hiking, painting, and illustrating books, particularly classics. He currently resides in Kirov, Russia. For this edition, Nikolay created a frontispiece and nine illustrations in watercolour.

Mike Hall is a talented freelance illustrator and map designer currently residing in Valencia, Spain. For this edition, Mike produced two stunning maps which are printed as the front and back-endpapers.