Bantam Classics The Time Machine

My parcel has arrived 2 days early than forecast and I just could not wait to open it and read a new OUP edition of The Time Machine.The editor has given a very succinct overview on the development of Wells, the writer, from his financial hardship to his later success as a world-historical figure in the early twentieth century. The editor pays special attention to those contemporary writers like Wells who did not come from upper-middle class to whom a classical education was more preferable than a science education. So, at the time, Wells and Haggard, for instance, were subtly slighted by "elitist" writers and critics.What is so impressive about the introduction is the editor's nuanced analysis on degeneration, a topic that greatly concerns the Victorians. Evolution is not always about becoming better; there is a chance to degenerate. The editor has shown how contemporary writers in the last twenty years of Victorian period expressed their concerns for the gloomy future of humanity.I also think the editor has greatly enriched the end-notes to the main text, which comes from the first UK edition though other editors use an earlier edition as copy text and emended errors one by one. As Prof Luckhurst says in Explanatory Notes, he has been also indebted to early work by S. Arata, P. Parrinder, ect. He has supplied some findings of his own to elucidate some terms. A wonderful job done!The flow of ideas is smooth. But on page xxiv, a misplaced subject in a sentence "mis-represents" the intended meaning of his idea: As a science journalist, drama critic, etc, IT is surprising that Well's work... My guess is that the editor is referring to the author rather than the work and so it may be: As a science journalist, a drama critic, WELLS not surprisingly has produced a work that feels like an echo-box of many literary genres...Very happy to see a renewed interest in Wells as reflected in the long list of books and articles on his works.

The book itself is a classic and I'm not faulting it. This particular edition was a little disappointing having a rather brief and superficial introduction. Moreover, the "Classic literature: words and phrases" section at the end (which sounded like an excellent idea in principle) seemed utterly unrelated to the text. It included words such as shabby and smallpox (both referenced to Huckleberry Finn) but none of the more obscure words from Wells' story - etiolated? cicerone?I also purchased a Wordsworth Classics edition of another of Wells' stories (actually a 2-in-1) and that includes a more substantial introduction, biography and (relevant!) end notes. I'd recommend you look out for those editions instead.

I bought this as a second-hand book, at a lower price than offered for a new one but when it came it appears completely new and unread. So, the vendor provided value.The book itself is a classic, there is no doubt. However, it is a short; only some 125 pages and at about 30,000 words is a novella rather than a novel.The story involves a 'Time Traveller' who builds a time machine and explains to sceptical dinner party guests his travel forward by some eight hundred thousand or so years to a world where humankind has split into two races, the gentle Eloi living above ground and the subterranean dwelling Morlocks. The themes explore how human society and evolution may interact to create these two separate races. An interesting and no doubt radical and groundbreaking work of its time, however modern scientists may question the credibility.There is a single short chapter towards the end where the Time Traveller goes forward to the end of the Earth as the sun dies - only some 30 million years hence, which is a much shorter time than modern science predicts.Good to have read it, although inevitably dated.

First published way back in 1895 this novella still has the power to really make us think about the future of mankind. Although time travel had come up in literature before I think H G Wells is the person credited for giving us the term time machine which has now become universal.We never know the time traveller’s name as the narrator leaves out that tantalising detail. The story starts one evening with friends gathered around and they are told about and presented with a small model time machine, which is then made to disappear. Of course like us most of them believe this to be the work of sleight of hand. But as we read on and these people are gathered for a dinner and chat some time later, the time traveller bursts in on them, saying he has been forward in time.And so we are taken millennia into the future where we are told of what was seen and experienced. Ending up in what was once London the area seems to be full of partially ruined buildings and the landscape is like a vast garden. There we are introduced to the Eloi, who are like us, but more diminutive and not really showing that much interest in the world around them, as well as being a bit simple. But as our intrepid explorer is about to find out, these are not the only people around, for there are the Morlocks who live underground.As we read here the time traveller has certain theories on what has happened in the many centuries that have passed since his own and this fits in with Wells’ own politics and leanings, so this is very much a socialist idea with which the traveller forms his opinions. In all this is still a great story to read, and although I suspect most have already read it before at one time or another there will always be those who have never read it before, as well as many who would like to reacquaint themselves with this tale.

The 1890s were haunted by the flip-side of Darwinism - the notion that the evolution of mankind may not always follow an upward curve and that, at some point, as a species mankind would regress, degenerate, and collapse back into something altogether less impressive than the heroic, upstanding ladies and gentlemen of the Victorian era. Wells, in The Time Machine, taps into these concerns and via a rather natty piece of narrative trickery puts forward what is almost a fable about the possible ultimate destination of the human race.The time traveller (he is never named) accelerates his machine far into the future (the year 802, 701 AD to be precise) and finds himself among the Eloi, an elfin, beautiful, delicate and rather feminine species. The Eloi live above ground and seem to like nothing more than lounging about in the sunlight and generally not doing anything. The time traveller finds them rather charming, although his attempts to communicate with them result in failure. Later in the story he encounters an altogether more sinister species, the Morlocks, nasty, brutish, living underground and only emerging at night. Even worse the Morlocks seem to prey - in a very literal sense - upon the Eloi. Needless to say adventure ensues....Wells, via his time traveller, puts forward some notions about the respective origins of the Eloi and the Morlocks. The former represent the aristocracy flung far into the future, grown weak, idle and decadent. They are beautiful, but of no real worth to anyone, not even to themselves. The Morlocks represent the masses, the working classes, excluded from education and relying upon their brute strength in order to survive. They feed and cloth the Eloi, but they reap a terrible price in return.It is, especially when you think of it in the context of the time in which it was written, all rather clever. Wells was able to create what was a good adventure yarn on one level work on a far deeper plain of meaning by tapping in to the concerns of the age. The time machine itself is beautifully described and it's a lovely idea but it is perhaps Wells's thoughts on the ultimate destination of mankind which give the story its lasting resonance. It's well worth reading, and not just because it is, in many ways, the grand daddy of a whole branch of science fiction.