H. G. Wells first published The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth in 1904. He called it "a fantasia on the change of scale in human affairs... I had hit upon [the idea] while working out the possibilities of the near future in a book of speculations called Anticipations (1901)."

This novel is about a group of scientists that invent food that accelerates the growth of children turning them into giants upon becoming adults. There have been many B-movie adaptations. This is Wells at his finest with a science experiment gone wrong.