The Outline of History

The Outline of History, subtitled either "The Whole Story of Man" or "Being A Plain History of Life and Mankind," is a book by H. G. Wells published in 1919. Wells was very dissatisfied with the quality of history textbooks at the end of World War I, and so, between 1918 and 1919, produced a 1,324-page work which was published in serial softcover form in 1919, with the first hardcover edition appearing in 1920. The book met with popular acclaim and massive sales. Nevertheless, its popularity and literary achievements were overshadowed by Wells's works of science fiction, such as The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and his most popular work, The War of the Worlds. Because of this, Wells is now known not as a non-fiction writer or a historian, but as a novelist.