lls had a high public stature throughout his career as a historian and novelist, and that the credibility as a historian and "real world" activist in a sense derived from the career as successful novelist. The fact that the Fabians have not survived into the current period in the same way as, say, the Tories or Socialists in England, has to be weighed against the fact that although Wells was perhaps on the fringe of direct political action, he was also a part of the mainstream and not as it were on the "lunatic" fringe. This is alluded to indirectly by Hayes, et al., in their survey of the period in which Wells made his reputation. "In British politics, significant change were taking place. Marxian socialism had never won much of a place in British life, though it had inspired the formation of a small "Social Democratic Federation in 1881. More important were the 'Fabian' Socialists, a group of intellectuals, including Shaw and Wells, who preached socialization by gradual reform" (2:685).
Wells was in one sense a chronicler of an age of change, attempting to make sense of a w
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