With The Outline of History Wells started a craze that lasted throughout the 1920s for copycat outlines on every conceivable subject. Coming right after the carnage of World War I, the Outline was neither unduly pessimistic and cynical about the human condition nor Pollyannaish about humanity's future. Instead, it offered an account of the development of the world's civilizations up to the present, showing its readers that an enlightened future depended on a clear, unprejudiced view of the past.

Born in 1866 in Bromley, England, to a poor family, Herbert George Wells began as an apprentice at the age of 14, but educated himself on his own, received a scholarship (1884), and specialized in biology at the University of London, from which he graduated in 1888.

Having become a teacher, but still without money, he will ask journalism for additional resources.

His first book is a work of biology, his second a novel: La Machine à explorer le temps (1895), which was an immediate success.

One of the pioneers, with Jules Verne, of the novel of anticipation, Wells is also a polemist, believing in progress through science.

These trends are reflected throughout a work that includes nearly 50 novels, tales, short stories and essays.

H. G. Wells died in London on August 13, 1946.