H.G. Wells

 

H. G. Wells' The Time Machine is a science fiction novella written in the frame narrative style. It was published in 1895. The book is often credited with popularizing the concept of time travel through the use of a vehicle or gadget to travel forward or backward in time purposefully and selectively. Wells developed the term "time machine," which is now nearly commonly used to refer to such a vehicle or technology.

Set in Victorian England, Wells' novel is considered in modern times as a commentary on the era's growing inequality and class enmity, which he predicted would result in the creation of the Eloi and Morlock races, with terrible consequences for human evolution's future. Wells' picture of the Eloi as a species living in abundance and abandonment is said to have been inspired by the utopian romance novel News from Nowhere (1890), albeit Wells' universe is noticeably more cruel and violent. Wells stated in his 1931 prologue to the book that The Time Machine appeared to be "a very undergraduate performance to its now mature writer as he rereads it," however he maintains that "the writer feels no sorrow for this adolescent attempt." However, critics have lauded the novella's treatment of its thematic concerns, with Mariana Warner stating that the novella was the most significant contribution to understanding fragments of desire prior to Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams, with the novel "how close he felt to the melancholy seeker after a door that he once opened on to a luminous vision and could never find again."

The Time Machine has been adapted into two feature films, two television adaptations, and numerous comic book adaptations. Additionally, it has served as an indirect inspiration for numerous additional works of fiction in a variety of media formats.