The Time Machine

‘I had made myself the most complicated and the most hopeless trap that ever a man devised’

When a Victorian scientist propels himself in the year 802,701 AD, he is initially delighted to find that suffering has been replaced by beauty, contentment and peace. Entranced at first by the Eloi, an elfin species descended from man, he soon realises that this beautiful people are simply remnants of a once-great culture – now weak and childishly afraid of the dark. They have every reason to be afraid: in deep tunnels beneath their paradise lurks another race descended from humanity – the sinister Morlocks. And when the scientist’s time machine vanishes, it becomes clear he must search these tunnels if he is ever to return to his own era.

The Time Machine is the first and greatest modern portrayal of time travel. Part of a brand-new Penguin series of H.G. Wells’ works, this edition includes a newly established text, a full biographical essay on Wells, a further reading list and detailed notes. Marina Warner’s introduction considers Wells’ development of the ‘scientific romance’ and places the novel in the context of its times.