The Science of Life: A Summary of Contemporary Knowledge about Life and Its Possibilities was published in thirty-one fortnightly parts by the Amalgamated Press beginning in 1929, collected into three volumes (later two, then one) in 1930–1931, and is the most ambitious popular science book of the interwar period. Co-authored by Wells, his son George Philip Wells (a zoologist), and Julian Huxley (grandson of T.H. Huxley and one of the foremost biologists of his generation), the work attempted to do for biology what The Outline of History had done for human civilization: make the entirety of a vast field accessible to the general reader.
The Book
The scale is staggering: over 1,500 pages covering every aspect of biology known to science in 1930. The work is organized into nine “books”: the nature of life; the living body; the biology of the human body; reproduction; heredity; evolution; ecology; the mind; and biology and the human race. Each section combines clear exposition with Wells’s characteristic energy of argument.
The division of labor was roughly: Huxley provided the scientific expertise (particularly on evolution, genetics, and ecology), G.P. Wells contributed detailed anatomical and physiological material, and H.G. Wells wrote the larger synthetic chapters and handled the literary quality of the prose. The collaboration was not always smooth — Huxley and the elder Wells disagreed about emphasis and interpretation — but the result is remarkably coherent for a multi-author work.
The sections on evolution and genetics are particularly strong, presenting the modern evolutionary synthesis (then still in formation) with clarity and conviction. The sections on human behavior and social biology reflect the eugenics thinking common to progressive intellectuals of the period — material that reads uncomfortably today but that was mainstream science in 1930.
Themes
Scientific literacy — Wells’s core conviction was that democratic citizens needed to understand science. The Science of Life was his most systematic attempt at scientific education.
Unity of knowledge — the book argues that biology is not a collection of separate disciplines but a single science, unified by evolution. This integrative vision was ahead of its time.
Human destiny — the final sections extend biology into politics, arguing that humanity’s future depends on the application of biological knowledge to social problems. This was controversial then and remains so.
Collecting The Science of Life
First edition in parts (Amalgamated Press, London, 1929–1930): 31 parts in wrappers. Complete sets: $400–$1,000.
First edition in book form (Amalgamated Press, London, 1930): Three volumes, blue cloth. $200–$600 for the set.
Doubleday edition (Garden City, 1931): Two volumes, the most common American edition. $100–$300 for the set.
The book’s enormous size and its status as a collaborative work make it less collected than Wells’s novels, but its intellectual ambition and its role in the history of science communication give it lasting significance.