Wells and the Short Story

Abstract

On 21 June 1894 a short story entitled ‘The Stolen Bacillus’ and signed ‘H. G. Wells’ was published in the Pall Mall Budget. The date is of some significance to literary history for, while this was by no means his first published short story, it was the first to appear over his own name. His earlier fiction had appeared anonymously or over a pseudonym; the fact that for the first time he was allowed to sign his work meant that he had ‘arrived’ on the London literary scene. The name H. G. Wells was at that time not widely known. He was the author of elementary textbooks of biology and physiography published in the previous year but these had not sold extensively. Beyond this his name would have been familiar to the readers of scholastic journals such as the University Correspondent and the Educational Times, both of which had published articles by him on educational topics, but as a literary ‘name’ he was hitherto unknown.

There was a time when life bubbled with short stories; they were always coming to the surface of my mind, and it is no deliberate change of will that has thus restricted my production.

H. G. Wells, Introduction to The Country of the Blind and Other Stories