This early work by H. G. Wells was originally published in 1905 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography as part of our Cryptofiction Classics series. 'The Empire of the Ants' is a short story of a Brazilian Captain who has been sent to help a town's inhabitants fight a plague of intelligent ants. Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, England in 1866. He apprenticed as a draper before becoming a pupil-teacher at Midhurst Grammar School in West Sussex. Some years later, Wells won a scholarship to the School of Science in London, where he developed a strong interest in biology and evolution, founding and editing the Science Schools Journal. However, he left before graduating to return to teaching, and began to focus increasingly on writing. It was in 1895 that Wells seriously established himself as a writer, with the publication of the now iconic novel, The Time Machine. Wells followed The Time Machine with the equally well-received War of the Worlds (1898), which proved highly popular in the USA.