Time Machine for Sale

If science fiction is your thing and you're currently on the look out for a house in Sutton, you may be interested to know that the former home of H.G. Wells is now for sale....

Described by Estate Agents Frost Brothers as "a property of immense character," the house, a 4/5 bedroom semi in South Sutton, was built in the mid-nineteenth century and has a heritage listing with Sutton council. Among it's many benefits are a master bedroom with en-suite shower room, an attractive 90' approx. rear garden, and off road parking for two cars.

Wells was born in Bromley in 1866 into a lower middle class family. He initially apprenticed as a draper, later became a teacher, and graduated with a B.SC in 1890.

His first publication was a biology textbook but he eventually abandoned hard science for the pleasures of fiction, becoming a full time writer in 1893. The Time Machine followed in 1895, The Island of Dr. Moreau in 1896, and The Invisible Man in 1897.

A pioneer in the science fiction genre, Wells's work was immensely popular and was given the Hollywood treatment on more than one occasion. However, perhaps the most spectacular adaptation of his work took place in 1938, when Orson Welles' Mercury Theater radio broadcast, based on The War of the Worlds, caused a panic in the Eastern United States.

The novel, written at a time when Percival Lowell's "observations" of canals on Mars stimulated speculation that there could be life on the Red Planet, deals with the possibility of a Martian invasion of Earth. Wells' life long association with Surrey is acknowledged in the novel, albeit in a rather curious way: the little green men from Mars choose to land on Horsell Common and destroy Woking before they set about world domination.

The house, showing no signs of extra-terrestrial interference, is on the market for £275,000.

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