H.G. Wells created classic science-fiction tales such as The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds, reinvented the Dickensian novel in Kipps and The History of Mr Polly, pioneered postmodernism in experimental fiction and harangued his contemporaries in polemics which included two bestselling histories of the world. He brought equal energy to his outrageously promiscuous love life. A series of affairs embraced distinguished authors such as Dorothy Richardson and Rebecca West, the gun-toting travel writer Odette Keun and Russian spy Moura Budberg. The life of Wells is a great story in its own right. Here it is retold from a 21st-century perspective, making it accessible and fascinating to general readers and English literature specialists alike.