How does an imaginative but irascible writer – the future author of 100 books and the grandfather of science fiction – thank his literary partner and wife for her steady, selfless and sterling contributions to his career? How does he ask for forgiveness when he’s behaved badly? How does he diffuse the time bombs of marital tensions that tick endlessly between them? In the case of H.G. Wells, we now know. A new book shows and tells how the futurist-historian-novelist communicated these and a myriad of other intimate thoughts to Jane, his second wife – as stalwart a sidekick as any fiction-writer could dream up.