The Time Machine

The Time Machine is a science fiction novel by H. G. Wells, published in 1895. Wells is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle that allows an operator to travel purposely and selectively forwards or backwards in time. The term "time machine", coined by Wells, is now almost universally used to refer to such a vehicle.

The Time Machine has since been adapted into three feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions, and a large number of comic book adaptations. It has also indirectly inspired many more works of fiction in many media.

The story revolves around a man known only as The Time Traveller, an inventor who has created a time machine. He uses it to travel into the far future, where he encounters beings known as Morlocks and Eloi, who are two species evolved from Humans.

Wells had considered the notion of time travel before, in a short story titled "The Chronic Argonauts" (1888). This work, published in his college newspaper, was the foundation for The Time Machine.

Adaptations

Radio and audio

• Escape radio broadcasts
• 1994 Alien Voices audio drama
• 7th Voyage
• 2009 BBC Radio 3 broadcast

Films

A poster from the 1960 film, showing the Time Traveller and Weena fighting Morlocks.

• 1949 BBC teleplay
• The Time Machine (1960 film)
• 1978 television film
• The Time Machine (2002)

Comics

• Classics Illustrated
• Pendulum Press
• Eternity Comics

Derivative works

• The Fantasy Film Worlds of George Pal
• Time After Time (1979 film)
• Sliders: "The Last of Eden"
• Wishbone: "Bark to the Future"
• Time Kid
• Morlocks

Sequels by other authors

• La Belle Valence by Théo Varlet and André Blandin (1923)
• Die Rückkehr der Zeitmaschine (1946) by Egon Friedell
• The Hertford Manuscript by Richard Cowper, first published in 1976
• The Space Machine by Christopher Priest, first published in 1976
• Morlock Night by K. W. Jeter, first published in 1979
• Time Machine II by George Pal and Joe Morhaim, published in 1981
• The Man Who Loved Morlocks (1981) and The Truth about Weena (1998) by David J. Lake
• The Time Ships, by Stephen Baxter, first published in 1995
• The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel by Joe R. Lansdale, first published in The Long Ones (1999)
• The 2003 short story "On the Surface" by Robert J. Sawyer
• Burt Libe wrote two sequels: Beyond the Time Machine (2005) and Tangles in Time (2005)
• Allan and the Sundered Veil by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill
• David Haden's novelette The Time Machine: A Sequel (2010)
• Simon Baxter's novel The British Empire: Psychic Battalions Against The Morlocks (2010)
• Hal Colebatch's Time-Machine Troopers (2011)
• Paul Schullery's The Time Traveller's Tale: Chronicle of a Morlock Captivity (2012)
• Pablo Gómez's Año 802701 (2014)
• The Great Illustrated Classics adaptation of Wells' novella (published in 1992)