The Time Machine

A science fiction classic if there ever was one, H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine coined the popular title phrase and was one of the first novels to experiment with the space-time continuum. At the start of the book, the narrator identifies a man known simply as the Time Traveller, who, at a dinner party, claims to have built a machine that is able to travel across time, the fourth dimension. The Traveller tests his machine and finds himself in 802,701 AD, where he finds a species of small adults called Eloi. The Eloi live in a peaceful communist society. As the Traveller heads back to his device, he finds that it is missing. He is kidnapped by a race of ape-like humans who eat the Eloi. After fighting his way back to his machine, the Traveller moves ahead 30 million years into the future. He finds the last living things on Earth, slowly deteriorating. He proceeds backward and forward in time for a while, seeing the sun fading away and life on Earth suffering. When he finally makes it back to his dinner party, the Traveller recounts what he has experienced to his guests and the narrator. Suddenly jumping back into the machine and promising to return in half an hour, the Traveller disappears again. After three hours, the narrator fears what may have happened to him. Today, the novel has been adapted into feature films, animated series and dozens of comic books. It continues to be an inspiration to every medium that tackles time travel and is consistently on lists of best-selling books of all time.



This book was created from a scan of the original artifact, and as such the text of the book is not selectable or searchable.