The English collection
The Time Machine
The novella
An inventor asks his dinner guests to imagine travelling through time. Wells turns that extraordinary possibility into a story of discovery, uncertainty and questions about the future of human society.
A way into the book
From the introduction
Around a comfortable dinner table, a man proposes that time is a dimension through which we might travel. His listeners argue, joke and ask for proof. The setting of The Time Machine is reassuringly domestic: armchairs, a bright fire, glasses catching the light. From this small circle of Victorian acquaintances, H. G. Wells opens a prospect almost too large to imagine. The inventor is known only as the Time Traveller, a name that identifies both his achievement and the story he asks others to believe. Before wondering whether the machine could work, notice the scene of persuasion. This is an extraordinary journey presented through the ordinary, uncertain business of listening to someone tell a tale.
An excerpt from the original Read Classics introduction. The Android preview contains the complete introduction and Chapter I.
Inside the illustrated edition
The art of the story · The Time Machine
Beyond the present
Day and night fold into bands of colour. Five visionary paintings explore the strange distances of Wells’s future.
a brilliant arch, in space
The art of the story · The Time Machine
The garden’s silent watcher
White marble, green bronze and a rising moon. The future appears beautiful, weathered and unreadable.
the light of the rising moon
The art of the story · The Time Machine
What time leaves behind
A vast green ruin rises over an estuary. Small figures measure the distance between a world and its remains.
deserted and falling into ruin
The art of the story · The Time Machine
The colour of danger
Black trunks stand against a sky of flame. Sweeping brushwork gives the forest a terrible grandeur.
through the black pillars of the nearer trees
The art of the story · The Time Machine
At the farthest shore
An immense red sun hangs above still water. A final vision of distance, solitude and deep time.
the huge hull of the sun, red and motionless
In development
The Android preview
Introduction + Chapter I · No account needed.
The Android app lets you try the typography and read the preview offline. It is not yet available for public download.
For now, you can read the introduction excerpt above. This website does not yet offer the reading sample or an interactive reader.
Explore the reading experience