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The Time Machine

h.g. wells cynthia brantley johnson benjamin beard

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The Time Traveller, a dreamer obsessed with traveling through time, builds himself a time machine and, much to his surprise, travels over 800,000 years into the future. He lands in the year 802701: the world has been transformed by a society living in apparent harmony and bliss, but as the Traveler stays in the future he discovers a hidden barbaric and depraved subterranean class. Wells's transparent commentary on the capitalist society was an instant bestseller and launched the time-travel genre.

 

The Time Machine inspired the international bestseller The Map of Time by Félix J. Palma. As a gift to our readers, we are including the first three chapters of The Map of Time in this ebook edition.  

150 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1,1895
Places
london england, england, united kingdom, 

This edition

Format
150 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published
July 1, 2004 by Simon \u0026 Schuster
ISBN
9780743487733
ASIN
0743487737
Language
English
Characters More characters

More editions

About the author

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h.g. wells

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Herbert George Wells was born to a working class family in Kent, England. Young Wells received a spotty education, interrupted by several illnesses and family difficulties, and became a draper's apprentice as a teenager. The headmaster of Midhurst Grammar School, where he had spent a year, arranged for him to return as an "usher," or student teacher. Wells earned a government scholarship in 1884, to study biology under Thomas Henry Huxley at the Normal School of Science. Wells earned his bachelor of science and doctor of science degrees at the University of London. After marrying his cousin, Isabel, Wells began to supplement his teaching salary with short stories and freelance articles, then books, including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898).

Wells created a mild scandal when he divorced his cousin to marry one of his best students, Amy Catherine Robbins. Although his second marriage was lasting and produced two sons, Wells was an unabashed advocate of free (as opposed to "indiscriminate") love. He continued to openly have extra-marital liaisons, most famously with Margaret Sanger, and a ten-year relationship with the author Rebecca West, who had one of his two out-of-wedlock children. A one-time member of the Fabian Society, Wells sought active change. His 100 books included many novels, as well as nonfiction, such as A Modern Utopia (1905), The Outline of History (1920), A Short History of the World (1922), The Shape of Things to Come (1933), and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1932). One of his booklets was Crux Ansata, An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. Although Wells toyed briefly with the idea of a "divine will" in his book, God the Invisible King (1917), it was a temporary aberration. Wells used his international fame to promote his favorite causes, including the prevention of war, and was received by government officials around the world. He is best-remembered as an early writer of science fiction and futurism.

He was also an outspoken socialist. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Fathers of Science Fiction". D. 1946.

More: http://philosopedia.org/index.php/H._...

http://www.online-literature.com/well...

http://www.hgwellsusa.50megs.com/

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells

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Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 99 votes)
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99 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Notshane
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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El futuro es incierto. Esta obviedad ha existido desde tiempos inmemoriales y se ha convertido en objeto de estudio e hipótesis para las generaciones que han tratado de explicar el avance de la humanidad. A finales del siglo XIX, muchos escritores empezaron a novelizar su visión del futuro con historias que a día de hoy aún resultan fascinantes y, en muchos casos, premonitorias. En este periodo se considera históricamente a Jules Verne y a H.G. Wells como precursores de la ciencia ficción europea. Mientras que el primero ofrecía un análisis más técnico y científico, el segundo estaba enfocado en las consecuencias sociales del progreso de la humanidad.

En La máquina del tiempo, un científico explica a un grupo de amigos su intención de viajar en el tiempo gracias a una máquina que está construyendo y que se encuentra en su fase final de puesta en marcha. Consigue finalizar todos los preparativos y viajar hasta el año 802.701, en el que se encontrará con dos especies distintas: los Eloi y los Morlocks.

Wells mueve los hilos en una batalla entre el pesimismo y la esperanza, enviando un mensaje de advertencia que sigue siendo tan prioritario como hace más de cien años. Una sociedad dormida, decadente y despreocupada de su entorno se puede convertir en una sociedad abocada al fracaso. El autor era muy consciente de la importancia que tenía el esfuerzo y la superación de obstáculos a nivel individual para conseguir una sociedad inteligente, preparada y autosuficiente. Cualquier acto que suponga la supresión de responsabilidades para un determinado sector o clase social (en contraposición de una mayor presión y explotación de otros grupos) estará condenado a un futuro oscuro.

Con muy pocas páginas, La máquina del tiempo se convierte así en un gran tratado social sobre las diferencias de clases que utiliza la ciencia ficción de forma muy inteligente para poder demostrar comportamientos y actitudes en el ser humano que no encajarían en ambientes más costumbristas o realistas. Se podría considerar que fue uno de los puntos de partida con los que poder hablar de la sociedad actual a partir de situaciones y puntos de vista completamente innovadores.

Actualmente se pueden encontrar novelas del género mucho más elaboradas, con una base científica mejor desarrollada e incluso con una crítica social más mordaz. Aun así, este primer trabajo de Wells mantiene un buen ritmo durante toda la novela, no hace uso de grandes tecnicismos que puedan ralentizar el desarrollo de la historia y, por encima de todo, ofrece una visión de la evolución del ser humano que parece que no ha cambiado tras tantos años y, lamentablemente, parece que no cambiará en los próximos.
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lisa_cap0b
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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The Time Traveler invites over his friends and tells them of his theories about time traveling. The next day when his friend returns he stumbles in late and then tells them a tale about his journey through time. I really admired the writing though it may be dry or dense for some, I think I've been reading long enough that it wasn't too much of an effort to read through this one. The premise was interesting and I was anxious for the Time Traveler when he was recounting his journey to get back to the present so the story did draw me in. Some of the social commentary felt quite questionable and pessimistic though. I enjoyed reading it though, it's not very long and it was interesting. Towards the end of the Time Traveler's journey I got a little bored but the ending was really good, I appreciate an open ended ending that lets you keep imagining what happened.



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-Snowman-
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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I chose to listen to this on LibriVox, read by Mark Nelson and I'm in awe—of this wonderful story and of Nelson's narration.

Written in 1895, The Time Machine is narrated by a man who details the accounts of a Time Traveller he knew, in the most captivating way. I have a feeling that if I had read a physical copy, I'd have given it a 3 or a 4 out of 5. But listening to the audiobook somehow enhanced the experience for me and I can find nothing to criticize.

Highly recommend!
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taztinky
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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The Time Machine is not primarily a novel about time travel, time travel paradoxes and so forth. It is chiefly a speculation on the far future of humanity and, closer to home, about class conflict and the evolution of the industrial civilisation.

It starts as an almost casual chat by the fireside about the possibility of travelling through the fourth dimension and the invention of the machine — oddly described as an ordinary bicycle that can go through time. The “Time Traveller” (he is never named) then pays a visit to the human race of the year 802,701 and discovers what, at first, looks like a utopia: the descendants of the human race seem to live, in perfect harmony, comfortable lives in a garden full of flowers. But as the night comes, a disturbing reality soon replaces this vision... The end of the story is an unsettling flight to Earth’s most remote and crepuscular future. Finally, the Time Traveller disappears, leaving but a few flowers on his desk.

This novella (some 60 pages) is a seminal work of the science-fiction genre. It remains to this day a landmark that has influenced almost all the utopian or dystopian writers, from Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men, to Huxley’s Brave New World, to David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, to Michel Faber’s Under the Skin, to Thomas Pynchon’s Against the Day.

Edit: Watched the 2002 film remake, directed by Simon Wells (one of the author's descendants, apparently). This is a somewhat faithful adaptation of the book, yet a quite average movie overall. Most scenes are imitations of Indiana Jones’s tropes: an awkward academic / action hero, an ancient library, some exotic places, a couple of attractive ladies, a gloomy cavern, a heap of skeletons, a melting face. The Morlock are quite ridiculous — around the same time, Peter Jackson included Orcs into his Fellowship of the Ring that were way more convincing. The machine itself, designed like a lighthouse lamp, and the time-lapse sequences are the only unexpected and exciting elements of this film.
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ILMFP
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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I first read the Time Machine as a teenager, more than 40 years ago now. I remembered it as an exciting adventure story, and I had particularly enjoyed the gradual way the Time Traveller came to understand the world of the Eloi and the Morlocks. I decided to read it again to see whether my opinion had changed.

It’s a mainly downbeat novel. The world of 802,701 A.D. turns out to be not at all what the Time Traveller had expected. Later he travels forward to the far future and almost to the end of life on Earth.

Rather than describe such a well-known story I thought I would highlight a couple of the themes that struck me on this reading. One was Darwinism. At the beginning, the narrator describes the dinner parties thrown by the Time Traveller, and how during the after-dinner conversations “some particular topic would triumph by a kind of natural selection”. Later he ponders on the physical frailty and lack of intelligence of the Eloi, and concludes these arise from a lack of challenge, “For such a life, what we should call the weak are as well-equipped as the strong, indeed, are no longer weak. Better equipped indeed they are, for the strong would be fretted by an energy for which there was no outlet.”

The other theme was the class conflict of Wells’ time. When the Time Traveller first arrives, he climbs a hill for a view of the society of the Eloi, and his first thought is “communism”. It turns out though that class conflict still exists, in a weirdly mutated form. When I first read the book all those years ago, I wholeheartedly shared the Time Traveller’s horror of the Morlocks. I felt the same on my second reading, although thinking rationally, the Morlocks did not choose their fate, and have no other way to live.

If you haven’t read the book, it’s worth doing so. It’s very short and can easily be read in few hours.
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Yuukii_Cross
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Published in 1895, this is considered a groundbreaking classic. The time machine - part of the appeal of this is that it doesn't propose the science, it just concentrates on the outcome! It does give a tidy description of the 4 dimensions at the beginning. There is also a lot of speculation on what has occurred between present time and the year 802,701, where the story is set for the most part.

I also enjoyed the ending, and thought that fitting - although I won't spoil it here.

The writing is overly wordy, and with clunky prose - as you might expect from a late 19th Century novel, and some of the speculation is easily skimmed over, but in principle this is a significant book which influenced the genre of time travel.

A solid 3 old fashioned stars.
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Benitobandito
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Every one of his books I've read I've really enjoyed, and there's no exception with The Time Machine.

His stories I find were fast-paced, plot-driven and pioneering.

I also find that the ones I've read have been unique 'basic' plots with not much character development and with the fast-paced writing you're left with wanting more.

He sets out these basic plots of, alien invasion, time travel and invisibility which are timeless and can be expanded upon.

It's no wonder he's one of the most influential and greatest science fiction writers of all time.
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kujokarizma
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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I read this story in 1962, after Miss Stearns (of blessed memory) read some Wells to us kids in seventh grade. Wow.

I had suddenly had picked up the Sci-Fi/Fantasy Bug.

BIG time!

That was when my disease - reading - got terminal, with this one book which Mom brought to me at age eleven (invalidated for a week with a head cold) from our Police Village public library which she ran.

Can you imagine, my MOM (bless her, too, in the hereafter, Lord) purposefully gave me a terminal disease?

***

No joke - I'm now, at 74, slowly Dying from it!

Used to be music I constantly used to crave as the drug of choice to take upstairs for naptime - now it's my Kindle. I just can't stop reading!

But it's gotten even worse.

Because When you're reading time stops. That means I'm now in Wells' story as the main character. Time stops and light turns grey when you're hurtling thru time, Wells tells us.

That's where my soulmate of 47 years and I are now.

Grey power rules! Wells was right - time flies when you're having fun.

And reading is still the most fun I've had in years.

We're even morphing in tune with our years, as Wells says - we're turning into Elois, gosh darn it. We snack on healthy food, and less of it.

A banquet is way too much! And we avoid fleshly things, like the Good Book says. And the bad folk - Morlocks all - are meanwhile morphing into subterranean creepy crawlies.

Holy moley! Did I just say The Time Machine is a CHRISTIAN book, too?

***

Yes.

I did.
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