The Time Machine
A Victorian inventor builds a machine that travels through time — and finds the distant future divided into the gentle Eloi and the underworld Morlocks. The first great time-travel novel.
About this edition
H. G. Wells published this in 1895, before physics had a working theory of time as a dimension, and it became the book that gave the time machine to literature. Its narrator travels forward only — an important choice — and finds that human history has quietly sorted itself into two species, one living above ground and one below, with a relationship no one wants to describe aloud. What makes it last isn't the gadget. It's the unease: the traveller arrives at the end of the world, watches the sun go dim over a dead sea, and comes back unable to finish the sentence about what he saw. Every time-travel story since is in some sense arguing with this one. Complete text, chapters in order.
I. — Introduction
Introduction
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The fire burnt brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere, when thought runs gracefully free of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this way—marking the points with a lean forefinger—as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought it) and his fecundity.
“You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvert one or two ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for instance, they taught you at school is founded on a misconception.”
“Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?” said Filby, an argumentative person with red hair.
“I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable ground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You know of course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness _nil_, has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.”
“That is all right,” said the Psychologist.
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Quick answers about The Time Machine
What is The Time Machine about?
A Victorian inventor builds a machine that travels through time — and finds the distant future divided into the gentle Eloi and the underworld Morlocks. The first great time-travel novel.
Is The Time Machine free to read?
Yes. Every story on RapidTale is free to read in the browser, with no sign-up and nothing to install.
How long does it take to read?
This story runs 16 chapters — most readers finish in one sitting, and you can stop and return to any chapter using the contents list.
Who wrote it?
Classic Books — this is the complete public-domain text, published in its original form.