The Empire of the Ants by H. G. Wells: Summary, Analysis & Themes

The most successful and satisfying period of H. G. Wells’s long writing career spanned from around 1894 to 1904. Notable works from this period include short stories and novels such as The Food of the Gods , In the Days of the Comet, The War in the Air , and The World Set Free . Among Wells's mid-career stories, ‘The Empire of the Ants’, published in Strand magazine in December 1905, stands out as one of the finest shorter works. Summary ‘The Empire of the Ants’ follows a group of men traveling to a fictional location in the Amazon basin in South America to assist the locals in dealing with a plague of ants. The captain of the ship, Gerilleau, describes the ants to Holroyd, a Lancashire engineer in the group. He recounts an incident where the ants attacked a house, partially destroying it. When the family's son returned to the house, believing the ants had left, he was attacked and killed by a swarm. The crew discovers an abandoned boat with the decayed bodies of two men and the deck c…