H G Wells

The Time Machine Annotated H G Wells

The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895 and written as a frame narrative. The book's protagonist is a Victorian English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey, identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveler. Similarly, with but one exception none of the dinner guests present are ever identified by name, but rather by profession (for example, "the Psychologist") or physical description (for example, "the Very Young Man"). Returning to the site where he arrived, the Time Traveler is shocked to find his time machine missing and eventually concludes that it has been dragged by some unknown party into a nearby structure with heavy doors, locked from the inside, which resembles a Sphinx. Luckily, he had removed the machine's levers before leaving it . Here, the Time Traveller finds a fresh supply of matches and fashions a crude weapon against Morlocks, whom he must fight to get back his machine. He plans to take Weena back to his own time. Because the long and tiring journey back to Weena's home is too much for them, they stop in the forest for the night.