Catherine Wells (née Amy Catherine Robbins; 8 July 1872 – 6 October 1927) was an English writer and poet. She was a former student of

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

, to whom she was married from 1895 until her death.

Life

Amy Catherine Robbins was born in

Islington, London Islington ( ) is an inner-city area of north London, England, within the wider London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's #Islington High Street, High Street to Highbury Fields ...

, on 8 July 1872, the daughter of Frederick and Maria Catherine Robbins. She was described as "fragile figure, with very delicate features, very fair hair, and very brown eyes". Following the death of her father, she undertook degree study in order to become a teacher. She was a student of

at the Tutorial College in

Holborn Holborn ( or ), an area in central London, covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part (St Andrew Holborn (parish), St Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) of the Wards of the City of London, Ward of Farringdon Without i ...

, and they married on 27 October 1895. They lived initially in

Camden Town Camden Town () is an area in the London Borough of Camden, around north-northwest of Charing Cross. Historically in Middlesex, it is identified in the London Plan as one of 34 major centres in Greater London. Laid out as a residential distri ...

and

Sevenoaks Sevenoaks is a town in Kent with a population of 29,506, situated south-east of London, England. Also classified as a civil parishes in England, civil parish, Sevenoaks is served by a commuter South Eastern Main Line, main line railway into Lo ...

, and later at

Woking Woking ( ) is a town and borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in north-west Surrey, England, around from central London. It appears in Domesday Book as ''Wochinges'', and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settleme ...

and

Worcester Park Worcester Park is a suburban town in South London, England. It lies in the London boroughs of Sutton and Kingston, and partly in the Surrey borough of Epsom and Ewell. The area is southwest of Charing Cross. The suburb's population was 16,031 ...

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

. Their household in Worcester Park was portrayed by

Dorothy Richardson Dorothy Miller Richardson (17 May 1873 – 17 June 1957) was a British author and journalist. Author of ''Pilgrimage'', a sequence of 13 semi-autobiographical novels published between 1915 and 1967—though Richardson saw them as chapters of o ...

in ''

Pilgrimage A pilgrimage is a travel, journey to a holy place, which can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life. A pilgrim (from the Latin ''peregrinus'') is a traveler (literally one who has come from afar) w ...

'' (1915). Richardson had been a schoolfriend of Catherine Wells. The couple were known to their friends as H. G. and Jane. In 1900, they moved to Spade House, a home built for them and designed by architect C. F. A. Voysey. They had two sons: George Philip (born 1901) and Frank Richard (born 1903). ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' described Catherine Wells as "her husband's devoted friend and assistant", and "one of the very few transcribers who could read the odd mixture of longhand and shorthand in which he wrote his books", adding that she showed a business acumen which supported her husband. Her own literary output, they wrote, "was necessarily restricted by her domestic responsibilities".

Writings

During her lifetime, Catherine Wells had a small number of writings published. Reviewing her stories (published posthumously in ''The Book of Catherine Wells''),

Katherine Anne Porter Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890 – September 18, 1980) was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, poet, and political activist. Her 1962 novel '' Ship of Fools'' was the best-selling novel in the United States that y ...

wrote that Catherine Wells' writing was partly a reaction against her identity being subsumed to domestic life and overshadowed by H. G. Wells. Porter argued that:

this indefatigable woman asked for one thing more. She asked for one fragment of her mind to use as she liked. She resolutely set herself to write... ndthe stories offer a strange contrast to the portrait her husband gives.

Sylvia Lynd in '' The Daily News'' described the collection as offering:

a sense of the short story as a medium for revealing life rather than for surprising the reader... There is so much insight, so much observation, so much courage, so much compassion in them. Their writer was too good an artist to succeed as a magazine writer, perhaps too good a magazine writer to please herself as an artist.

'' The Civil & Military Gazette'' wrote that "For lightness of touch: power of making her readers see what she sees: and almost uncanny insight, these short stories can scarcely be surpassed".

Death and legacy

Catherine Wells died from cancer on 6 October 1927. Her funeral at

Golders Green Crematorium Golders Green Crematorium and Mausoleum was the first crematorium to be opened in London, and is one of the oldest crematoria in Britain. The land for the crematorium was purchased in 1900, costing £6,000 (the equivalent of £136,000 in 2021), ...

was led by T. E. Page, using a service written by H. G. Wells. He had based this on the secular ceremony script created by humanist and educationist F. J. Gould. Attendees included

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...

and

Arnold Bennett Enoch Arnold Bennett (27 May 1867 – 27 March 1931) was an English author, best known as a novelist, who wrote prolifically. Between the 1890s and the 1930s he completed 34 novels, seven volumes of short stories, 13 plays (some in collaborati ...

. In an obituary in ''The Times'', Catherine Wells was described as having been "an admirable hostess...

ith The Ith () is a ridge in Germany's Central Uplands which is up to 439 m high. It lies about 40 km southwest of Hanover and, at 22 kilometers, is the longest line of crags in North Germany. Geography Location The Ith is i ...

a pretty sense of humour":

Nor was her benevolence confined to her home, which she made an abiding centre of harmony and good-will. For she was always ready to help any lame dog over a stile in the most tactful and unobtrusive manner.

Following her death, H. G. Wells collected Catherine's poetry and short stories for publication.''The Book of Catherine Wells'' was published by

Chatto & Windus Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his busines ...

in 1928. Fifteen pocket-book diaries kept by Catherine Wells are held in the archives of

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

Popular Culture

In the 1979 film '' Time After Time'', the actress Mary Steenburgen plays Amy Robbins, a San Francisco woman, who befriends and later falls in love with the fictional H. G. Wells, who has traveled to the future. Robbins in the story travels back in time with Wells. A postscript implies that she is his historical wife.

References

External links

* '' The Book of Catherine Wells'' at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wells, Catherine 1872 births 1927 deaths 20th-century English poets 20th-century English women writers Deaths from cancer in England People from Islington (district) Poets from London Writers from the London Borough of Islington