The Grisly Folk and Their War With Men

Herbert George Wells (1866-1946) was one of the most popular British writers of all time. 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, history, popular science, satire, biography and autobiography. Wells is now best remembered for his Science Fiction novels and has been called the “Father of Science Fiction”.

In addition to his fame as a writer, he was prominent in his lifetime as a forward-looking, even prophetic social critic who devoted his literary talents to the development of a progressive vision on a global scale. A futurist, he wrote a number of utopian works and foresaw the advent of aircraft, tanks, space travel, nuclear weapons, satellite television and something resembling the World Wide Web. His Science Fiction imagined time travel, alien invasion, invisibility, and biological engineering before these subjects were common in the genre.

The Grisly Folk and Their War With Men is a Well’s short story. First published in the Storyteller Magazine in April 1921. Written in the form of an essay, it is an imaginary account of the early interactions between Neanderthals and modern man. Wells speculates that as small groups of “true men” migrated from the south into Europe, driven by feuds and a shortage of food caused by their growing population, it is very probable that they came into conflict with the Neanderthals. The story focuses on one such group, led by two brothers, Waugh and Click.