Summary
Summary of The Time Machine
Key ideas
Key idea 1
The future tests the present
Wells imagines what might become of humankind if the world of his own day simply continued along its existing path. His interest in evolution and social change gives the adventure a question beneath its strange events: what kind of future are people making through the way they live now?
The story begins with a dinner guest listening to an inventor who claims to have travelled through time. His account brings together an adventure and an argument about class, comfort and what society owes its workers.
Key idea 2
An extraordinary claim meets ordinary doubt
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Key idea 3
The machine leaves familiar life behind
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Key idea 4
A gentle world hides troubling signs
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Key idea 5
The missing machine changes his theory
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Key idea 6
Comfort does not guarantee human progress
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Key idea 7
Ordinary details support an extraordinary tale
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Key idea 8
New evidence calls for new explanations
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The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
For readers who love ideas wrapped in adventure, strange creatures and future worlds, and anyone curious about the roots of science fiction or stories exploring class and evolution.
What this book is
The Time Machine is a short novel by H. G. Wells, published in 1895. It was his first book, and it made his name. Wells had trained as a science student under the biologist T. H. Huxley, and he wrote the story with the new ideas of evolution and social change fresh in his mind. He wanted to ask what would become of humankind if the world of his own day simply kept going the way it was going.
The story is told by a guest at a dinner party. Their host, whom everyone calls the Time Traveller, claims to have built a machine that moves through time. He then tells them where it took him. You get a lively adventure, with strange creatures, a lost machine and a race against darkness. You also get a sharp argument about class, comfort and what a society owes its workers. We begin at the dinner table, where the idea first comes up.
In this summary
- 1A dinner argument about the fourth dimensionFree
- 2The machine carries him far into the future
- 3The Eloi live in a gentle, empty paradise
- 4The machine vanishes and the dark below stirs
- 5The tale is about class and where it could lead
- 6A tale within a tale, told with plain care
Key point 1 of 6
A dinner argument about the fourth dimension
The story opens in the house of the Time Traveller, in Richmond near London. He has invited a small group of men to dinner, and they are used to his odd lectures. Among them are a Medical Man, a Psychologist, a Provincial Mayor and a Very Young Man. The narrator is another guest, and the host is never given a name.
Over the evening the Time Traveller sets out his argument. Everyone knows that an object has length, breadth and thickness. He says that time is a fourth dimension, and that we only fail to travel along it because of how our minds are made. We move through it, he says, but only in one direction and not by choice. His guests are polite but doubtful, and they ask how a man could ever go back or forward.
To prove it he shows them a small model of his machine. It is made of brass and ivory and rock crystal, and it has a tiny lever. He asks one guest to press the lever, and the model vanishes before their eyes. He says the model has gone into the future or the past, and nobody can say which. The company is unsettled but still inclined to think it was a clever trick.
The following week the guests return, but their host is not there to greet them. He arrives late, tired, dirty and limping, with a pale and haggard face. He says he has a story to tell, and he asks them not to interrupt. The rest of the book is his account, and it begins with the day he finished the real machine and climbed aboard.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Check yourself
Why does the Time Traveller first think the Eloi have become weak?
Right. “He decides that humanity has grown soft because it no longer needs to struggle.”Not quite. “He decides that humanity has grown soft because it no longer needs to struggle.”
What does the Time Traveller think separates the ancestors of the Eloi and Morlocks?
Right. “He thinks the Eloi are the descendants of the idle upper class, and the Morlocks are the descendants of the workers.”Not quite. “He thinks the Eloi are the descendants of the idle upper class, and the Morlocks are the descendants of the workers.”
How does the Time Traveller respond when his explanations seem incomplete?
Right. “The Time Traveller builds one theory, then replaces it, and then wonders whether the second is also incomplete.”Not quite. “The Time Traveller builds one theory, then replaces it, and then wonders whether the second is also incomplete.”
Who’s who
- The Time Traveller
- An inventive host in Richmond, he builds a machine for travelling through time and explains his discoveries to his guests.
- Weena
- A gentle Eloi woman, she becomes the Time Traveller's devoted companion after he saves her from drowning.
- The Eloi
- These delicate, childlike people live above ground in apparent comfort and are the first future inhabitants the Time Traveller meets.
- The Morlocks
- These pale underground creatures tend machines, fear light, and take the Time Traveller's machine.
- The Narrator
- A guest at the Time Traveller's dinner table, he listens to his host's account and relates it to readers.
- The Medical Man
- A practical, politely doubtful dinner guest, he listens as the Time Traveller explains his extraordinary invention.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 33,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 2 h 10 min
- Listening time3 h 40 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary; paperback, hardcover and large print at cost
- LanguagesEnglish and 14 other languages
Questions about The Time Machine
What is The Time Machine about?
It follows a Victorian inventor who builds a machine to travel through time. He journeys to the year 802,701, where he meets two very different peoples and must find a way to recover his lost machine.
Who are the Eloi and the Morlocks?
The Eloi are small, gentle, childlike people living in the sun above ground. The Morlocks are pale creatures who live underground among machines. The Time Traveller sees them as the far descendants of the upper and working classes.
When was The Time Machine written?
H. G. Wells published it in 1895. It was his first novel. It is fiction, but it grew from real scientific ideas of his day, especially evolution and the thinking of his teacher T. H. Huxley.
Is The Time Machine hard to read?
No. It has quick chapters and clear prose. The adventure soon takes over and keeps a steady pace.
What is the main message of The Time Machine?
Wells warns that a society split between idle comfort and hard labour is dangerous for everyone. He also suggests that humans lose strength and intelligence when they no longer face challenges.
