In 1933, Wells resumed a romance with Moura Budberg that had begun in 1920, when Budberg was a Countess but was busy cheating on her husband with Maxim Gorky. Budberg eventually left both the marriage and the Soviet Union, settling in London to become Wells' last true love. She was also probably using his impressive social connections for her work as a Soviet spy, but while she rejected Wells' repeated marriage proposals and showed him about as much faith as he had showed his lovers, she did take care of him during his final days.Â
Those are just a few of the highlights, but if you need more details Wells himself wrote about his sexual conquests, right up until a "last flare of cheerful sensuality" with sex workers when he was a sickly 74-year-old. Wells called regular sex "as necessary as fresh air" to his work, and while he confessed that he "preyed on people who loved me" he also bragged about doin' it atop a bad review before burning it, so his feelings could be called mixed. Either way, he was horny until the end, at one point walking across London to meet a lover we're told commented "at his age, by the time he had walked there, I don't know why he bothered."Â