The first one-volume edition of the short stories of H.G.Wells - a total of 84 stories by one of the Great masters of the genre. Herbert George Wells - author of The Time Machine and the war of the worlds - was on of the founding-fathers of modern science fiction. But in his short stories, written when he was a young man embarking on a literary career, that he first explored the enormous potential of the scientific discoveries of his day. He described his stories as ' a miscellany of inventions ', yet his enthusiasm for science is tempered by an awareness of it's horrifying destructive power and the threat it could pose to the whole human race. A consummate story teller, he makes fantastical creatures and machines entirely believable; and by placing ordinary men and women in extroadinary situations he humorously explores what it means to be alive in a century of rapid scientific progress. At the close of the millennium, in the age of Dolly the sheep, Wells fin de Siecle vision is more pertinent than ever before.