# The Time Machine (1895)

> The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, first published Jan–May 1895: publication record, synopsis, a verified quotation and sources.

Canonical page: https://lineageofshadows.com/works/the-time-machine/

Title: The Time Machine: An Invention
Author: H. G. Wells
Form: Novella
First appearance: Jan–May 1895 (timeline year 1895)
Themes: Science, Evolution, Degeneration

## Publication record

- Serial, Jan–May 1895: The New Review, London. Serialised in the January to May numbers of The New Review. Per the Science Fiction Encyclopedia. [1]
- Volume, 1895: Henry Holt and Company, New York. First book edition (US); only the year is established. [1]
- Volume, 1895: William Heinemann, London. The London edition, which the Science Fiction Encyclopedia calls the preferred text; only the year is established. [1]

## Synopsis

At a Thursday dinner, an inventor whom the narrator can only call the Time Traveller shows his guests a small model that vanishes into tomorrow. A week later he staggers in, bruised and starving, to tell where the full-size machine has taken him. In the year 802,701 he finds the gentle, childlike Eloi playing in ruined gardens, and learns that pale creatures called Morlocks tend machinery underground and prey on them by night. The machine has been dragged into a Morlock burrow, and he must get it back. Beyond that lies a darker journey toward the end of the Earth.

## Setting

A Victorian dinner-party present, then the year A.D. 802,701. Places: a house in Richmond (the Time Traveller's), London area; the Thames valley in the far future; the Palace of Green Porcelain; a dying shore under a red sun [2]

## From the text

> It seemed to me that I had happened upon humanity upon the wane. The ruddy sunset set me thinking of the sunset of mankind.

Chapter VI (The Sunset of Mankind). Project Gutenberg ebook #35: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35 (Gutenberg text of the Heinemann-line edition; the file's chapter headings are numbered I to XVI plus an Epilogue)

## Facts

- Wells never names his protagonist: the narrator introduces him as 'the Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him)', and the destination of his main journey is stated in the text as the year Eight Hundred and Two Thousand Seven Hundred and One, A.D. [2]
- The tale ran in The New Review from January to May 1895, and two different book texts followed the same year: the first book edition came from Henry Holt in New York, and the London Heinemann edition is the one the Science Fiction Encyclopedia names as the preferred text. [1]
- The Science Fiction Encyclopedia reads the Eloi and the Morlocks as a powerful rendering of the implications of Social Darwinism, and the Eloi's Eden as a harsh corrective to William Morris's News from Nowhere. [1]

## Notes on dates and attribution

- Order and dates of the two 1895 book editions: the SF Encyclopedia confirms Holt (New York) as 'first book edition' and Heinemann (London) as the preferred text, both 1895, without days. Only the year is shown.

## Sources

1. Wells, H G (Science Fiction Encyclopedia entry). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (SFE Ltd). https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/wells_h_g (accessed 2026-10-09)
2. The Time Machine (Project Gutenberg ebook #35). Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35 (accessed 2026-10-09)