"Life and the world are beautiful… And yet it is an arena. There is no place here for idle spectators; here one must desire, make decisions and carry them out, deal and receive blows – and then depart" (Herbert George Wells, 1866-1946)

The founder of Russian Wells studies, Sergei Sergeevich Dinamov (1901-1939), defines his British contemporary as "a highly distinctive socialist", an ideologue of the scientific and technical intelligentsia, and moreover, establishes the reason for the plausibility of his most incredible fantasies. Thus, Wells's finest science fiction novel – "The War of the Worlds" (1898) – is so convincing that its radio adaptations more than once caused panic among listeners. You can find S.S. Dinamov's article in the collection "Foreign Literature" (1960) at the RUDN University Library.

Also held here are the two principal works about the "great Englishman" written by the leading scholar of his oeuvre, vice-president of the International Wells Society – Kagarlitsky Yuli Iosifovich (1926–2000): "An Essay on His Life and Work" (1963) and "Peering into the Future" (1989). Under the editorship of Yu.I. Kagarlitsky, the most complete collected edition of H.G. Wells's fictional works was published (In 15 volumes, 1964), along with numerous individual novels available at the RUDN University Library.

H.G. Wells's works were translated into Russian many times and published on a mass scale: "Herbert George Wells. A Bibliography" (1966). The compilers of this anniversary reference work supplemented it with their own discoveries. Inna Mikhailovna Levidova (1916-1988) – with notes from newspapers of 1914, and Yuri Vitalievich Kovalyov (1922-2000) – with the recollections of Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky (1882–1969):

"Wells met us at the station in a car of his own design, which he drove himself. He drove like a madman, knocking over posts, scraping gates";

"he did an enormous amount in a day, but neither for himself nor for those around him was there that burdensome feeling – I AM WORKING";

"…without pausing in his conversation, he hammered out four little articles" in the presence of correspondents from four mutually hostile newspapers and Korney Ivanovich…