The Time Machine

H. G. Wells’s short novel of a Victorian inventor who builds a machine that carries him to the year 802,701, where he finds humankind divided into the gentle Eloi and the Morlocks who live underground.

Start reading17 chapters, about 33,000 words

Famous quotes

• There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it.

  Chapter IIn context

  • Science
  • Time

• Strength is the outcome of need; security sets a premium on feebleness.

  Chapter VIIn context

  • Character

• Very simple was my explanation, and plausible enough⁠—as most wrong theories are!

  Chapter VIIn context

  • Ideas

• Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future.

  Chapter XIn context

  • Nature
  • Time

• There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change.

  Chapter XIIIIn context

  • Change
  • Intelligence

Contents

1. Chapter IIntroduction
2. Chapter IIThe Machine
3. Chapter IIIThe Time Traveller Returns
4. Chapter IVTime Travelling
5. Chapter VIn the Golden Age
6. Chapter VIThe Sunset of Mankind
7. Chapter VIIA Sudden Shock
8. Chapter VIIIExplanation
9. Chapter IXThe Morlocks
10. Chapter XWhen Night Came
11. Chapter XIThe Palace of Green Porcelain
12. Chapter XIIIn the Darkness
13. Chapter XIIIThe Trap of the White Sphinx
14. Chapter XIVThe Further Vision
15. Chapter XVThe Time Traveller’s Return
16. Chapter XVIAfter the Story
17. Epilogue