The Time Machine

ByH.G. Wells

Release Date: 2011-05-31
Genre: Classics

Score: 4

From 3,571 Ratings

Description

The H.G. Wells classic that helped launch the time travel genre.

The Time Traveller, a dreamer obsessed with traveling through time, builds himself a time machine and, much to his surprise, travels over 800,000 years into the future. He lands in the year 802701: the world has been transformed by a society living in apparent harmony and bliss, but as the Traveler stays in the future he discovers a hidden barbaric and depraved subterranean class.

The Time Machine inspired the international bestseller The Map of Time by Félix J. Palma. As a gift to our readers, we are including the first three chapters of The Map of Time in this ebook edition.

Reviews

Good book overall but needs some improvements.
3
By Annoyed kid 2.00
This book was good overall and I do recommend it for 6th graders and above, but was dreadfully boring and the main idea was a little blurry.
SPOILER ALERT, do not read ahead unless you have finished the book. thank you!

First of all, why did the time traveler leave his machine unguarded? The story literally revolves around the mistake that the time traveler made in leaving his machine to explore. Though it does help him reveal the truth about the “somewhat peaceful” world, it wouldn’t be a problem in the first place! He wouldn’t have had to rob a museum, or get Weena killed. Also, he needs to be prepared for futuristic adventures like those. Who knows what might be in the future? At least bring all the necessary needs! That left him depending on matches. I didn’t really like how the human race was split into two, because it was kind of racist, noting that I am a person who faces racism more often than others. And speaking about the human race in the future story, the author didn’t really make it clear what the creatures exactly looked like. Half the time I thought the Eloi were octopus people just because of the use of the word ‘tentacles’. I also read previous reviews and it one says that it is missing a chapter. That is very unhelpful because I need to do a report on it but that’s due to it not being fully told!
But hey, it’s an interesting book, and hopefully others will find it somewhat amusing.
An Unpleasant Read
2
By jesterjace
Maybe I missed something, but it seems like a person traveling 802,571 years into the future shouldn’t be getting so excited about finding working matches to light his way. In fact, that should have been nearly impossible. And he finds them in a museum?!? I wouldn’t expect to find LED light bulbs or a flashlight that far ahead much less matches. I got hung up on this point and couldn’t enjoy this ridiculous story. Had this fool character travelled just 80 years into the future he would have seen headlines about a moon landing. At that point a freakin’ butane lighter would have seemed god-like to the Traveller! Ridiculous! He goes 10,000 times further into the future and is wasting his time and resources on match management…and doing that poorly. Oh crap! I should have said spoiler alert.

The book was short-sighted and entrenched in London’s superiority being both self-evident and the obvious apex of human civilization with no room for improvement. It drips with colonialism. It reminds me of ‘The Lost World’ and its imperialistic and overtly racist and classist leanings.

It gets the second star only because the author creates the terms ‘time machine’ and, I believe, ‘morlock’ too. Those terms are so ingrained in sci-fi and comics that I have to give him respect for that.
It really questions the nightmare of what youth can do if there’s no sense to serve the elders.
5
By Bugz9829
I like how fire made him golden to them.
Engaging story
4
By mikemjohnson86
This was everything any fan of sci-fi expected from the classic. You can see how this story was the inspiration to thousands of others since the 127 years after it was published.
The time machine
5
By TRockTb
Superb
Great science; okay social science
4
By Zeenat.Mahal
The Time Traveler’s scientific curiosity is his main charm.

The narration inside the narration creates space for mystery and doubt. Some weird comments about race aside, the book is also an interesting critique of Victorian society.
Amazing
5
By Snoopercraft
This is an amazing book and it has a lot of exciting parts.
Amazingly addictive
5
By SerenityPrime04
This book made me feel like if I am traveler myself.I am 10 years old and this book shot me through the imagination of adventures.Though it is short it came to me to wish if it was real.It’s at a good and cheap price.I suggest to buy it .
A classic
5
By acp1919
The original. Accept no substitutes.
Time Machine
4
By Raven Hausman
Wow! Loved it. So amazing.

More by H.G. Wells

The Time Machine

H.G. Wells

4
The War of the Worlds

H.G. Wells

4
The Invisible Man

H.G. Wells

4
The Time Machine

H.G. Wells

4.5
The Island of Doctor Moreau

H.G. Wells

4.5
The World Set Free

H.G. Wells

4
A Short History of the World

H.G. Wells

3.5
The Invisible Man

H.G. Wells

4
The War of the Worlds

H.G. Wells

4.5
Tales of Space and Time

H.G. Wells

4
The invisible man

H.G. Wells

4
100 Classic Books

Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Charlotte Brontë, William Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, Louisa May Alcott, John Steinbeck, Emily Bronte, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Charles Dickens, L.M. Montgomery, A. A. Milne, Alexandre Dumas, Leo Tolstoy, Kurt Vonnegut, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anna Sewell, Hermann Hesse, Miguel de Cervantes, Herman Melville, Bram Stoker, Lyman Frank Baum, Jack London, Joseph Conrad, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Niccolò Machiavelli, H. G. Wells, Franz Kafka, The Brothers Grimm, Kenneth Grahame, Jules Verne, J.M. Barrie, Thomas Hardy, Gustave Flaubert, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Theodore Dreiser, Nikolai Gogol, Émile Zola, Wilkie Collins, W. Somerset Maugham, Rudyard Kipling, E. M. Forster, Edith Wharton, Henry Fielding, Robert Louis Stevenson, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Homer, Voltaire, Johanna Spyri, Ivan Turgenev, Samuel Richardson, Honoré de Balzac, William Faulkner, H.G. Wells, Kate Chopin, Ernest Hemingway, Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ayn Rand, George MacDonald, Sinclair Lewis, Thomas Seltzer, Rafael Sabatini, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Thomas Paine, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Willa Cather, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Harriet Jacobs, Thomas Hobbes, Philip K. Dick, Frederick Douglass, George Bernard Shaw, L. M. Montgomery, Saint Augustine, Dante Alighieri, H.G.Wells, James Fenimore Cooper, Gaston Leroux, Stendhal, W.E.B. Dubois, L. Frank Baum, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Yevgeny Zamyatin & Isaac Asimov

3.5
The Time Machine

H.G. Wells

4.5
Short Stories

H.G. Wells

3.5
The Crystal Egg (With Audio)

H.G. Wells

3.5
The First Men in the Moon

H.G. Wells

4
The war of the worlds

H.G. Wells

4.5
The Sea Lady

H.G. Wells

3.5
Marriage

H.G. Wells

3
The Invisible Man

H.G. Wells

4
100 Greatest Books Collection

Ernest Hemingway, Agatha Christie, Ayn Rand, Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut, D. H. Lawrence, F. Scott Fitzgerald, E. M. Forster, Oscar Wilde, Alexandre Dumas, Anna Sewell, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Daniel Defoe, Dante Alighieri, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Émile Zola, Emily Bronte, Franz Kafka, Frederick Douglass, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, George Bernard Shaw, George Eliot, Gustave Flaubert, H.G. Wells, Henrik Ibsen, Henry Fielding, Herman Melville, Hermann Hesse, Homer, James Joyce, Jane Austen, Johanna Spyri, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Conrad, Jules Verne, Kenneth Grahame, L. M. Montgomery, L.M. Montgomery, Lewis Carroll, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Mary Shelley, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sinclair Lewis, Stendhal, Victor Hugo, Virginia Woolf, Voltaire, William Faulkner, William Shakespeare, Honoré de Balzac, J.M. Barrie, L. Frank Baum, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Giovanni Boccaccio, Frances Hodgson Burnett, George Gordon Byron, Geoffrey Chaucer, Anton Chekhov, Wilkie Collins, James Fenimore Cooperf, Stephen Crane, Philip K. Dick, Franklin W. Dixon, Theodore Dreiser, W.E.B. Du Bois, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ford Madox Ford, Sigmund Freud, Kahlil Gibran, Elizabeth Gaskell, Susan Glaspell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, J.W. von Goethe, Nikolai Gogol, The Brothers Grimm, George and Weedon Grossmith, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Hobbes, Anthony Hope, Aldous Huxley, Henry James, Harriet Jacobs, Rudyard Kipling, Gaston Leroux, John Locke, Jack London, George MacDonald, A. A. Milne, A.A. Milne, John Milton, Thomas Paine, Edgar Allan Poe, Rafael Sabatini, Felix Salten, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sun Tzu, J. R. R. Tolkien, Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoi, Ivan Turgenev, H. G. Wells, Edith Wharton & Yevgeny Zamyatin

3.5
The Sleeper Awakes

H.G. Wells

3.5
The War of the Worlds Audio Edition

H.G. Wells

4
The time machine

H.G. Wells

4
100 Classic Book Collection (2025)

Louisa May Alcott, Dante Alighieri, Isaac Asimov, Jane Austen, Honoré de Balzac, J.M. Barrie, L. Frank Baum, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Bronte, Agatha Christie, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Geoffrey Chaucer, Kate Chopin, Wilkie Collins, Joseph Conrad, James Fenimore Cooper, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Frederick Douglass, Arthur Conan Doyle, Theodore Dreiser, W.E.B. Du Bois, Alexandre Dumas, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, George Eliot, William Faulkner, Henry Fielding, Gustave Flaubert, E. M. Forster, Elizabeth Gaskell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, J.W. von Goethe, Nikolai Gogol, Kenneth Grahame, The Brothers Grimm, Thomas Hardy, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Hobbes, Homer, Victor Hugo, Henrik Ibsen, Harriet Jacobs, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, Gaston Leroux, Jack London, George MacDonald, Niccolò Machiavelli, Sir Thomas Malory, W. Somerset Maugham, Herman Melville, A. A. Milne, L.M. Montgomery, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thomas Paine, Ayn Rand, Rafael Sabatini, Anna Sewell, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de Cervantes, William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Mary Shelley, Johanna Spyri, Stendhal, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jonathan Swift, J. R. R. Tolkien, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, Voltaire, Lew Wallace, H.G. Wells, H. G. Wells, Edith Wharton, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Émile Zola & F. Scott Fitzgerald

4
The Red Room

H.G. Wells

3.5
The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth

H.G. Wells

4
100 Greatest Books

Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Bram Stoker, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, William Shakespeare, Aldous Huxley, Victor Hugo, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Mark Twain, L.M. Montgomery, A. A. Milne, Alexandre Dumas, Leo Tolstoy, Kurt Vonnegut, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anna Sewell, Miguel de Cervantes, Herman Melville, L. Frank Baum, Jack London, Dante Alighieri, Joseph Conrad, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, H.G. Wells, Franz Kafka, The Brothers Grimm, Lewis Carroll, Louisa May Alcott, John Steinbeck, Emily Bronte, Oscar Wilde, Hermann Hesse & Niccolò Machiavelli

3
200 Greatest Books of All Time

E.M. Berens, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Giovanni Boccaccio, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Dante Alighieri, Isaac Asimov, Jane Austen, Honoré de Balzac, J.M. Barrie, Louisa May Alcott, L. Frank Baum, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Bronte, Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Marcus Aurelius, George Gordon Byron, Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Robert W. Chambers, Anton Chekhov, Agatha Christie, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Joseph Conrad, Stephen Crane, Daniel Defoe, Philip K. Dick, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, E. M. Forster, Sigmund Freud, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Kahlil Gibran, Susan Glaspell, George and Weedon Grossmith, Thomas Hardy, Ernest Hemingway, Homer, Anthony Hope, Victor Hugo, Aldous Huxley, Henry James, James Joyce, Washington Irving, Franz Kafka, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Sinclair Lewis, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, John Milton, L.M. Montgomery, Edith Nesbit, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche, Blaise Pascal, Edgar Allan Poe, John William Polidori, Samuel Richardson, José Rizal, Felix Salten, Thomas Seltzer, William Shakespeare, Adam Smith, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sun Tzu, Sunzi, Jonathan Swift, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoi, A. W. Tozer, Anthony Trollope, Mark Twain, Vatsyayana, Jules Verne, Virgil, Elizabeth Von Arnim, Kurt Vonnegut, Horace Walpole, Gertrude Chandler Warner, H.G. Wells, H. G. Wells, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Grossmith, Weedon Grossmith, Geoffrey Chaucer, Kate Chopin, Wilkie Collins, James Fenimore Cooper, Frederick Douglass, Theodore Dreiser, W.E.B. Du Bois, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, William Faulkner, Henry Fielding, Gustave Flaubert, Elizabeth Gaskell, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, J.W. von Goethe, Nikolai Gogol, Kenneth Grahame, The Brothers Grimm, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Hobbes, Henrik Ibsen, Harriet Jacobs, Gaston Leroux, Jack London, George MacDonald, Niccolò Machiavelli, Sir Thomas Malory, W. Somerset Maugham, Herman Melville, A. A. Milne, Thomas Paine, Ayn Rand, Rafael Sabatini, Anna Sewell, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de Cervantes, George Bernard Shaw, Mary Shelley, Johanna Spyri, Stendhal, Bram Stoker, Harriet Beecher Stowe, J. R. R. Tolkien, Ivan Turgenev, Voltaire, Lew Wallace, Edith Wharton & Émile Zola
The War in the Air

H.G. Wells

4
The Salvaging Of Civilisation

H.G. Wells
The Time Machine

H.G. Wells

3.5
Science Fiction Stories

Philip K. Dick, H.G. Wells, Kurt Vonnegut, Randall Garrett, Jack London, Isaac Asimov, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ayn Rand & Rudyard Kipling

3.5
The Door in the Wall and Other Stories

H.G. Wells

4.5
The Wonderful Visit

H.G. Wells

4
War of the Worlds

H.G. Wells

4
When the Sleeper Wakes

H.G. Wells

3.5
In the Days of the Comet

H.G. Wells

3.5
100 Greatest Books

Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, James Joyce, Kenneth Grahame, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Jules Verne, J.M. Barrie, Gustave Flaubert, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Theodore Dreiser, Nikolai Gogol, Émile Zola, Wilkie Collins, W. Somerset Maugham, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Rudyard Kipling, Daniel Defoe, E. M. Forster, Edith Wharton, Henry Fielding, Victor Hugo, Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells, D. H. Lawrence, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Homer, Voltaire, Johanna Spyri, Ivan Turgenev, Samuel Richardson, Honoré de Balzac, William Faulkner & Oscar Wilde

3.5
The New Machiavelli

H.G. Wells

4.5
The Time Machine: Audio Edition

H.G. Wells

4
50 Classic Science Fiction Works: Volume One

Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Edward Bellamy, G. K. Chesterton, Isaac Asimov, Edgar Rice Burroughs & George Allan England

3.5
100 Masterpieces You Have to Read Before You Die

Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edgar Allan Poe, Giovanni Boccaccio, Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Marcus Aurelius, Jane Austen, Willa Cather, Robert W. Chambers, Anton Chekhov, Agatha Christie, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Joseph Conrad, Stephen Crane, Daniel Defoe, Philip K. Dick, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, E. M. Forster, Sigmund Freud, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Kahlil Gibran, Susan Glaspell, George and Weedon Grossmith, Thomas Hardy, Ernest Hemingway, Homer, Anthony Hope, Victor Hugo, Aldous Huxley, Henry James, James Joyce, Washington Irving, Franz Kafka, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Sinclair Lewis, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, John Milton, L.M. Montgomery, Edith Nesbit, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche, Blaise Pascal, John William Polidori, Samuel Richardson, José Rizal, Felix Salten, Thomas Seltzer, William Shakespeare, Adam Smith, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sun Tzu, Sunzi, Jonathan Swift, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoi, A. W. Tozer, Anthony Trollope, Mark Twain, Vatsyayana, Jules Verne, Virgil, Elizabeth Von Arnim, Kurt Vonnegut, Horace Walpole, Gertrude Chandler Warner, H.G. Wells, H. G. Wells, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Anonymous, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Grossmith & Weedon Grossmith
H.G. Wells: The Short Story Collection

H.G. Wells

4.5
H. G. Wells: Classics Novels and Short Stories

H.G. Wells
The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories

H.G. Wells

4
The War of the Worlds

H.G. Wells

4
100 Classic Book Collection II (2025)

Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Marcus Aurelius, Jane Austen, E.M. Berens, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Giovanni Boccaccio, Frances Hodgson Burnett, George Gordon Byron, Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Robert W. Chambers, Anton Chekhov, Agatha Christie, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Joseph Conrad, Stephen Crane, Daniel Defoe, Philip K. Dick, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, E. M. Forster, Sigmund Freud, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Kahlil Gibran, Susan Glaspell, George and Weedon Grossmith, Thomas Hardy, Ernest Hemingway, Homer, Anthony Hope, Victor Hugo, Aldous Huxley, Henry James, James Joyce, Washington Irving, Franz Kafka, Rudyard Kipling, D. H. Lawrence, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Sinclair Lewis, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, John Milton, L.M. Montgomery, Edith Nesbit, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche, Blaise Pascal, Edgar Allan Poe, John William Polidori, Samuel Richardson, José Rizal, Felix Salten, Thomas Seltzer, William Shakespeare, Adam Smith, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sun Tzu, Sunzi, Jonathan Swift, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoi, A. W. Tozer, Anthony Trollope, Mark Twain, Vatsyayana, Jules Verne, Virgil, Elizabeth Von Arnim, Kurt Vonnegut, Horace Walpole, Gertrude Chandler Warner, H.G. Wells, H. G. Wells, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Anonymous, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Grossmith & Weedon Grossmith
50 Classic Books, Vol. 2

Mark Twain, Thomas Paine, Leo Tolstoy, Lew Wallace, George MacDonald, H.G. Wells, Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Herman Melville & Wilkie Collins

3.5
When the Sleeper Wakes

H.G. Wells

4