The H.G. Wells Society

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Aims and Functions of the Society

The H.G. Wells Society was founded in 1960. It has an international membership, and aims to promote a widespread interest in the life, work and thought of Herbert George Wells (see "Statement of Objects"). It publishes an 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.

Here is a list of H.G. Wells works currently in print (updated through February 2005), an important note on Wells and Copyright, and a full bibliography.

The Society organises a weekend conference each year when aspects of Wells's life and work are discussed in a congenial atmosphere. Topics discussed in recent years have included

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.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

The subscription rate is currently £18 a year (UK/EU) or £21 (rest of the world); couples, £21; institutional members, £22; retired, unwaged and full-time students, £12 (UK/EU) or £15 (rest of the world). For more information on joining the society, follow this subscription link.

Subscription and other society information is available through:
Eric Fitch
20 Upper Field Close
Hereford
HR2 7SW
England
UK
Please address publicity enquiries to the society's Publicity Officer, Dr Emelyne Godfrey.

SOCIETY NEWS AND EVENTS

  • (February 2012) The H. G. Wells Society is pleased to announce the inaugural Giles Hart Prize, in memory of the Society's former chairman, for an essay that makes an outstanding contribution to Wells studies. The prize will be awarded to the piece of work on Wells submitted to, and published in, the 2012 issue of The Wellsian, the annual, peer-reviewed, learned journal of the H. G. Wells Society.

    Papers concerning any aspect of Wells's life and work are invited. Possible themes might include: Wells's science fiction; Wells and the novel; Wells, utopia, politics and the World State; Wells and science; Wells and his contemporaries; Wells and gender; Wells and the Empire; Wells and the history of the book.

    Essays should not exceed 6,000 words including all footnotes and should not have been previously published. Please see www.hgwellsusa.50megs.com/UK/wellsian.html, and refer to recent issues of The Wellsian, for style guidelines; work that presented at a low standard will not be considered for the prize. Essays should be submitted electronically, no later than 31st March 2012, to m.r.glass@durham.ac.uk; please direct any queries to s.j.james@durham.ac.uk.

    The value of the prize is £250.00. The committee of the H. G. Wells Society will judge the competition, and runners-up will be published alongside the winning essay in The Wellsian. The competition excludes individuals serving on the Executive Committee of the H G Wells Society.

    For details on joining the Society, follow this Subscription Link.

  • Liverpool University Press are currently offering a special web discount on their title H. G. Wells, Modernity and the Movies by Keith Williams.

  • Click for Patrick Parrinder's review of the society's 2010 From Kent to Cosmopolis conference. It was held at the Darwin Conference Centre, University of Kent at Canterbury, July 9th - 11th, 2010.

  • The first known Mongolian translation of The War of the Worlds is now available from the Mongolian National Association for Control of Infectious Diseases for $16 (US) per copy, including postage and packing. Discounts available for orders of five or more copies. Please contact the association president, Prof. P. Nymadawa at nymadawa@gmail.com for ordering information. The association's special edition includes illustrations and a parallel English translation of what appears to be the authoritative Atlantic edition of 1924.

  • Click for information on The Early Fiction of H.G. Wells: Fantasies of Science, by former HGW Society Secretary Steve McLean, offering a detailed and comprehensive study of the interconnections between Wells's scientific romances and the discourses of science in the 1890s and early years of the twentieth century. It has just been shortlisted for the British Society for Literature and Science's best book prize for 2009. Also still available is H.G. Wells Interdisciplinary Essays, a collection of mostly new essays from both established scholars and younger researchers and incorporates various aspects of Wells’s position as one of the most important writers of the late nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth century.

  • Click for information on H.G. Wells in Nature and H.G. Wells' Fin-de-Siecle, both edited by John Partington and published by Peter Lang AG.