3 h 39 minAudiobook9 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 90 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 90 pagesAbout this book
What if humanity’s distant future is not progress, but a beautiful world with something dreadful beneath it?
At a dinner party near London, an inventor makes an extraordinary claim: his machine can travel through time. In H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine, the Time Traveller tells his guests how he reaches the year 802,701 AD. There he meets the gentle, childlike Eloi, who live among fading beauty and show little curiosity about their world.
Then his machine disappears. Stranded far from home, the Time Traveller must look beyond this sunlit life and face the Morlocks, pale creatures who live underground among machines. Weena, an Eloi woman he saves from drowning, becomes his companion. As darkness threatens, his search raises unsettling questions about evolution, class division, and whether comfort makes a society stronger—or leaves it helpless.
What you’ll discover
- A leap into time Follow an inventor from a dinner-table argument into a future that overturns his expectations.
- Beauty with something missing Meet the Eloi, whose easy days invite troubling questions about curiosity, comfort, and change.
- The world beneath Venture toward the Morlocks’ underground machines, where the future takes a darker shape.
- Companionship far from home Discover Weena’s gentle presence in a strange world where night brings fear.
- Class carried into evolution Consider what happens when social divisions become differences of body and mind.
Is it for you?
This book suits readers who like ideas wrapped in adventure, anyone curious about the roots of science fiction, and those who want a classic that can be finished in an evening. If you want rich character studies or a slow, detailed plot, it may feel brisk.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A dinner argument about the fourth dimension
- The machine carries him far into the future
- The Eloi live in a gentle, empty paradise
- The machine vanishes and the dark below stirs
- The tale is about class and where it could lead
- A tale within a tale, told with plain care
Who’s who
- The Time TravellerAn inventor in Richmond who builds a time machine and travels far ahead. He is curious, brave and always eager to explain what he sees.
- WeenaA small, gentle Eloi woman whom the Time Traveller saves from drowning. She becomes his devoted companion and fears the dark.
- The EloiSlight, beautiful, childlike people who live in the sun above ground, eating fruit and playing, with little interest in the wider world.
- The MorlocksPale, ape-like creatures who live underground among machines and come out at night. They fear light and have taken the Time Traveller's machine.
- The NarratorA guest at the dinner who listens to the Time Traveller's tale and passes it on to the reader.
- The Medical ManOne of the dinner guests, who listens to the Time Traveller with polite doubt and a practical mind.
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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The Time Machine
by H. G. Wells· 1895
A time traveller finds humanity divided in the distant future.
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From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 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.
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The author
H. G. Wells
1866–1946 · English science fiction novelist
H. G. Wells (1866–1946) was an English writer born in Bromley, Kent. He wrote novels, short stories and nonfiction. His novels included The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898). He died in London.
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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.
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