Herbert George Wells (1866—1946) was an English writer. He was prolific in many genres, writing dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, but he is now best remembered for his science fiction novels. "When the Sleeper Wakes" is a dystopian science fiction novel about a man who sleeps for two hundred and three years, waking up in a completely transformed London where he has become the richest man in the world.