The Time Machine
Paperback
Publisher: Les Prairies Numeriques
Published: Mar 1 2026
Pages: 114
Weight: 0.36
Height: 0.27 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
The Time Machine is an 1895 dystopian, post-apocalyptic, science fiction novella by H. G. Wells about a Victorian scientist known as the Time Traveller who travels to the year 802,701. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively forward or backward through time. The term time machine, coined by Wells, is now almost universally used to refer to such a vehicle or device.
Utilizing a frame story set in then-present Victorian England, Wells's text focuses on a recount of the otherwise anonymous Time Traveller's journey into the far future. A work of future history and speculative evolution, The Time Machine is interpreted in modern times as a commentary on the increasing inequality and class divisions of Wells's era, which he projects as giving rise to two separate human species: the fair, childlike Eloi; and the savage, simian Morlocks, distant descendants of the contemporary upper and lower classes respectively.It is believed that Wells's depiction of the Eloi as a race living in plenitude and abandon was inspired by the utopic romance novel News from Nowhere (1890), though Wells's universe in the novel is notably more savage and brutal.
In his 1931 preface to the book, Wells wrote that The Time Machine seemed a very undergraduate performance to its now mature writer, as he looks over it once more, though he states that the writer feels no remorse for this youthful effort. However, critics have praised the novella's handling of its thematic concerns, with Marina Warner writing that the book was the most significant contribution to understanding fragments of desire[clarify] before Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, conveying how close [Wells] felt to the melancholy seeker after a door that he once opened on to a luminous vision and could never find again.
In 1933, in the preface to his collected works The Scientific Romances of H.G. Wells, Wells explained: My early, profound and lifelong admiration for [Jonathan] Swift...is particularly evident in a predisposition to make the stories reflect upon contemporary political and social discussions. He then noted, Mr. [Israel] Zangwill in a review in 1895 complained that my first book, The Time Machine, concerned itself with 'our present discontents'.
133 different editions
Also available
Illustrated Classics - Time Machine: Abridged Novels with Review Questions (Hardback)
Wonder House Books
Hardcover
The Time Machine: H.G. Wells' Groundbreaking Time Travel Tale, Classic Science Fiction
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
Also from
Wells, H. G.
La Guerra de Los Mundos: Novela de Ciencia Ficción / The War of the Worlds: A Science Fiction Novel
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
The Country of the Blind: Mandarin Companion Graded Readers Level 1, Simplified Chinese Edition
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
The Invisible Man / Der unsichtbare Mann [Bilingual Edition] - English & German (Vol I of II)
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
Classic Double Feature: The Horrors of Jekyll and Moreau
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Wells, H. G.
Hardcover
Flora Curiosa: Cryptobotany, Mysterious Fungi, Sentient Trees, and Deadly Plants in Classic Science Fiction and Fantasy
Robinson, Phil
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
The Invisible Man / Der unsichtbare Mann [Bilingual Edition] - English & German (Vol II of II)
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
Some Short Stories by H. G. Wells - Including the Invasion of Mars and the Valley of the Spiders
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
H. G. Wells: The War of the Worlds (English Edition): The Timeless Classic of Martian Invasion
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
The Phoenix Pick Anthology of Classic Science Fiction Stories (Verne, Wells, Kipling, Hawthorne & More)
Poe, Edgar Allan
Verne, Jules
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
The Time Machine: H.G. Wells' Groundbreaking Time Travel Tale, Classic Science Fiction
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
Science Fiction Classics: A Collection Of Short Si Fi Stories By The Father Of Science Fiction
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
The Time Machine / la Máquina Del Tiempo [Bilingual Edition] - English & Spanish
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
Joan and Peter II and the Story of a Great Schoolmaster: The Works of H.G. Wells Atlantic Edition Volume XXIV
Wells, H. G.
Hardcover
La Guerre Dans Les Airs, Roman. 7e Édition
Davray, Henry-D
Kozakiewicz, Bronis Aw
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
La Guerre Et l'Avenir. l'Italie, La France Et La Grande-Bretagne En Guerre
Wells-H
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
In the Avu Observatory (Cryptofiction Classics - Weird Tales of Strange Creatures)
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
The Valley of the Spiders (Cryptofiction Classics - Weird Tales of Strange Creatures)
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
The Empire of the Ants (Cryptofiction Classics - Weird Tales of Strange Creatures)
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
The Modern Monthly, V9, No. 2, April, 1935
Goldenweiser, Alexander
Santayana, George
Wells, H. G.
Paperback
Also in
Science Fiction
On the Calculation of Volume (Book I): Shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize
Balle, Solvej
Paperback
Red Rising 3-Book Box Set: Red Rising, Golden Son, Morning Star, and an Exclusive Extended Excerpt of Iron Gold
Brown, Pierce
Paperback
