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. The world has been transformed with a society living in apparent harmony and bliss, but as the Traveler stays in this world of the future he discovers a hidden barbaric and depraved subterranean class. Wells’s translucent commentary on the capitalist society was an instant bestseller and launched the time-travel genre.

INTRODUCTION

CHRONOLOGY OF H. G. WELLS'S LIFE AND WORK

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF The Time Machine

THE TIME MACHINE

NOTES

INTERPRETIVE NOTES

CRITICAL EXCERPTS

QUESTIONS FOR DIscussIoN

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INTERESTED READER