"In spite of an awareness of possible world catastrophe that underlay much of his earlier work and flared up again in old age, Wells in his lifetime was regarded as the chief literary spokesman of the liberal optimism that preceded World War I. No other writer has caught so vividly the energy of this period, its adventurousness, its feeling of release from the conventions of Victorian thought and propriety. Wells's influence was enormous, both on his own generation and on that which immediately followed it. None of his contemporaries did more to encourage revolt against Christian tenets and accepted codes of behaviour, especially as regards sex, in which, both in his books and in his personal life, he was a persistent advocate of an almost complete freedom. Though in many ways hasty, ill-tempered, and contradictory, Wells was undeviating and fearless in his efforts for social equality, world peace, and what he considered to be the future good of humanity."
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Novelists from EnglandCultural criticsShort story writers from EnglandSatirists from EnglandScience fiction authors from England
Original Language: English
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Norman Cornthwaite Nicholson, in the article "H. G. Wells" in Encyclopaedia Britannica
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._G._Wells
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