Everyone remembers Herbert George Wells as one of the greats of science fiction – indeed as the father of the modern SF genre, whose classic tale of interplanetary invasion The War of the Worlds appeared in 1898 and has its latest film incarnation this year.

Perhaps not so often remembered is that Wells became a celebrity on a scale that today's SF authors can only dream of (unless they happen to be Sir Arthur C Clarke). Wells clawed his way to fame from working-class beginnings, despite being frequently scoffed at by Establishment snobs as a "vulgar Cockney".

He was born on 21 September 1866, in Bromley, Kent.