The Time Machine
H. G. Wells · 1895
This book is rated Ages 10+. It isn't available on your library card.
A Victorian inventor climbs onto a gleaming machine of brass, nickel and quartz and hurtles to the year 802,701, where the gentle, childlike Eloi live in a ruined paradise -- and something pale and hungry waits in the darkness beneath.
An eerie adventure: the Morlocks are frightening, but danger and death are implied, never shown in gruesome detail.
Characters
The Time Traveller
A brilliant, restless inventor who builds a machine to journey through time and returns to tell his astonished friends what he found.
Weena
A gentle, childlike Eloi woman who becomes the Time Traveller's devoted little companion in the strange world of the future.
The Morlocks
Pale, ape-like creatures of the far future whose glowing eyes shine in the dark and hide an unsettling mystery.
The Eloi
Small, beautiful, carefree people of the future who greet the Time Traveller with laughter, flowers and fruit, but little curiosity.
The Medical Man
A shrewd, doubtful doctor among the Time Traveller's dinner guests, quick to admire the machine but slow to believe in it.
The Editor
A joking, sharp-tongued newspaper editor who can't resist making fun of the Time Traveller's dusty, dishevelled return.
Hillyer
A thoughtful regular guest at the Time Traveller's Thursday dinners who faithfully records the extraordinary tale he hears.
About the story
On a Thursday evening in Richmond, a Victorian inventor known only as the Time Traveller shows his dinner guests a small model of a machine that can travel through time. A week later he arrives late, dusty, pale and limping, and tells them where he has been. He has visited the year 802,701. The Thames valley has become one great garden of crumbling palaces, and humanity has become the Eloi, small, gentle people who live on fruit and spend their days at play. When his machine vanishes from the lawn beside a huge White Sphinx, he has to learn how this strange world works before he can get it back. Weena, a young Eloi woman he saves from the river, stays at his side.
H. G. Wells wrote the story in 1895 to ask what might become of people if life grew too easy and the divisions of his own society kept going for thousands of years. It is a story about progress and decline, comfort and fear, and how small a single human life is next to the vastness of time.
The Time Machine was one of the first novels about travelling through time with a machine, and it made the phrase "time machine" part of everyday language. It is short and vivid, and it still makes readers think. It helped found modern science fiction and has inspired films, books and countless time-travel stories since.
This is a condensed picture-book retelling in 51 illustrated pages, with about 19 minutes of narration by a synthetic voice. The pictures are AI illustrations drawn for this edition. Wells's full original novel is free to read in the public domain and is well worth reading too.
Adapted from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (1895), public domain.
Questions
What is The Time Machine about?
A Victorian inventor builds a machine that carries him hundreds of thousands of years into the future. There he finds humanity changed into the gentle, childlike Eloi, and he must uncover the secrets of their world to find his missing machine and return home.
Who is the main character?
The main character is the Time Traveller, an English scientist and inventor whose name is never given. He tells his story to a group of friends at his house in Richmond. Another important character is Weena, a young Eloi woman who becomes his companion in the future.
Is The Time Machine suitable for children?
This edition is rated 10+. There is nothing graphic, but it has tense and frightening scenes in the dark, moments of danger, and serious ideas about the future of humanity. These may unsettle younger children, while older children and teens usually find them gripping.
How long does this edition take?
The narration runs about 19 minutes across 51 illustrated pages, so it can easily be enjoyed in one sitting.
Is this the full book?
No. This is a condensed picture-book retelling that follows the main story in shorter form. Wells's complete novel is in the public domain and free to read, and it runs to only a few hours of reading.
Read the text version: every page's caption, with its picture, on one page.
