The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells. New York. 1988. Signet/New American Library. 0451521919. Afterword by Brian Aldiss. 145 pages. paperback. CE2191. Signet Classic original.
DESCRIPTION - A lonely island in the Pacific . . . The sinister scientist who rules it . . . And the strange beings who dwell there . . . This is the scenario for H.G. Well's haunting classic, one of his most intriguing and visionary fictions. Living in the late nineteenth century and facing the impact of Darwin's theory of evolution, Wells wrote this chilling masterpiece about the blurring characteristics of beasts as they turn into men. Dr. Moreau, a scientist expelled from his homeland for his cruel vivisection experiments, finds an isolated island that gives him the freedom to continue tortuous transplantations and create hideous creatures with manlike intelligence. But as the cruelly enforced order on Moreau's island dissolves, the true consequences of his meddling emerge. His new creations revert to beasts more shocking than any nature could devise. Today, when gene splicing and bio-engineering are already accepted scientific procedures, Wells's dark visionary fables serves as a compelling reminder of the horrors reckless experiments with nature can produce.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Herbert George ‘H. G.' Wells (21 September 1866 - 13 August 1946) was an English writer, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing textbooks and rules for war games. Wells is sometimes called ‘The Father of Science Fiction', as are Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback. His most notable science fiction works include The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The Island of Doctor Moreau. Wells's earliest specialised training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a specifically and fundamentally Darwinian context. He was also from an early date an outspoken socialist, often (but not always, as at the beginning of the First World War) sympathising with pacifist views. His later works became increasingly political and didactic, and he sometimes indicated on official documents that his profession was that of ‘Journalist.' Most of his later novels were not science fiction. Some described lower-middle class life (Kipps; The History of Mr Polly), leading him to be touted as a worthy successor to Charles Dickens, but Wells described a range of social strata and even attempted, in Tono-Bungay (1909), a diagnosis of English society as a whole.
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