H. G. Wells, British writer, social critic, futurist, and celebrated author of The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, witnessed the great events of two centuries and played a major role in many controversies of his turbulent age. With extraordinary foresight, he predicted such developments as the atomic bomb and space flight.

He was a leading voice for society's have-nots, a staunch supporter of women's and worker's rights, a passionate champion of equality among races and classes, and one of socialism's leading proponents. In tracking the life of Wells, Michael Foot - former leader of Britain's labor party and esteemed literary biographer - traces the growth of these major social movements and Well's commitment to them. What results is the story of a remarkable man whose work influenced a remarkable time.

1. The women he loved, and who loved him - among them four of the most independent-minded women of the era, his wife Jane Wells, Amber Reeves, Rebecca West, and Moura Budberg - played an important part in the world's perception of Wells. Foot explores these very public relationships and Wells's belief in free love. He contends that Wells's open defiance of the prudery of the time helped pull British society from the smothering embrace of Victorian morality and into the twentieth century.