From his impoverished childhood and determination to educate himself at any cost to his complicated marriages, fascination with socialism, and the ill health that dominated his youth, H.G. Wells's early life would set him on a path to become one of the world's most influential writers. The sudden success of The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds transformed his life and catapulted him to international fame. Also the biographer of Charles Dickins and Samuel Pepys, Claire Tomalin paints a fascinating portrait of an uncommonly driven artist.