Scientific and Horrific Stories
is a collection of short fiction by H. G. Wells. Despite his humble beginnings as the son of English servants, H. G. Wells would become one of the most revered writers of his day.
His stories of adventure, utopia, and terror inspired such vastly different figures as Vladimir Nabokov, Winston Churchill, Jorge Luis Borges, and Sinclair Lewis. Many of his novels have been adapted for film, theater, radio, and television, including
The Time Machine
(1895),
The Island of Doctor Moreau
(1896), and
The War of the Worlds
(1898).
includes twenty-six tales from across Wells’ career. “The Chronic Argonauts,” written while Wells was recuperating from an illness with friends in Stoke-on-Trent, is a story of time travel set in rural Wales that predates his beloved
by seven years. “Æpyornis Island” is a terrifying tale of greed and survival that originally appeared in an 1894 issue of the
Pall Mall Budget
. Tasked with finding rare
Aepyornis
eggs, a rugged Englishman named Butcher ventures to a remote swamp on the island of Madagascar. When one of the eggs unexpectedly hatches, he is left stranded and at the mercy of a vicious creature that was believed to be extinct. In “The Diamond Maker,” which also appeared in the
, a destitute man tells a wealthy businessman about his years as a maker of artificial diamonds, a time of great promise that ultimately led to his downfall.
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With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.