H G Wells's lover was Russian spy

H G Wells, the celebrated author of The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds, was also an unwitting dupe of Russian intelligence, a new biography claims.

Using letters and documents previously suppressed by the Wells estate, the book portrays him as a womaniser who fell into the arms of a Russian spy.

Wells was a leading figure in British society for much of the first half of the 20th century, and a friend of both Roosevelt and Churchill. But, according to American biographer Andrea Lynn, he was used by Stalin's agents to gain information about these and other Western figures.

Publication of Shadow Lovers: The Last Affairs of H G Wells later this month coincides with the British premiere of a £55m Hollywood remake of The Time Machine.

The claim is based on Wells's 1930s affair with the beautiful Ukrainian Baroness Moura Budberg. By cross-referencing the author's personal memoirs with recently released counterespionage files, Lynn has built up a detailed picture of Budberg as a Russian spy who used Wells's infatuation to glean information on his circle.

"I thought I was writing a book about love, but I ended up writing a book about espionage," said Lynn.

She also reveals the names of two of Wells's other lovers, whose identities had been concealed by his family for decades. "These relationships have been totally unknown except to a few members of the family," said Lynn.

The women in question are Martha Gellhorn, the writer and war correspondent who later married Ernest Hemingway, and Constance Coolidge, a US expatriate and French countess. Both relationships occurred when Wells was approaching 70. The two women were respectively 40 and 25 years his junior.

"The common perception of Wells is as the grandfather of science fiction," said Lynn, "but the author of The Time Machine was something of a sex machine."