The Time Machine: An Invention

The Time Machine is one of the most enduring works of the English language. A hundred years after it was first published, the book continues to be studied.
The 1895 London first edition is used as a basis for the exhaustive annotations and other critical apparatus of the world’s foremost Wellsian scholar. The widely reprinted version of 1924 is also fully accounted for. For most students, one of the chief points of interest is what the novel signified to readers when it was first published and how it relates to Wells’s later works. Accordingly, the annotations focus on these questions. The introduction gives in great depth the background of the work and its complex bibliographical history, and a synopsis of the literary conventions that Wells used.

The late Leon Stover, professor emeritus at the Illinois Institute of Technology, was the first to bring science fiction to the college curriculum and was the author of numerous landmarks of intellectual history. He lived in Chicago.

H.G. Wells
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 270
Bibliographic Info: 1 photo, annotations, appendices, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2012 [1996]
pISBN: 978-0-7864-6869-0
Imprint: McFarland
Series: The Annotated H.G. Wells

Preface      ix
Introduction      1

1. The Text      1
2. The Sphinx-Question      2
3. The Two Socialisms      4
4. Eloi and Morlocks      7
5. The Two Cultures      12

The Time Machine: An Invention (1895)      19
(Annotated text of the first London edition)      21

Appendices
I. The Chronic Argonauts (1888)      174
II. The Time Traveller’s Story (March–June 1894)      196
III. Excerpts from The Time Machine (Jan.–May 1895)      221
IV. “Mammon,” by Walker Glockenhammer (H.G. Wells)      229
V. “The Fourth Dimension,” by E.A. Hamilton-Gordon      233
VI. Excerpts from “Evolution and Ethics,” by T.H. Huxley      240
VII. Robert W. Paul on The Time Machine and the History of Movies      244

Bibliography      247
Index      255

“Wells’s masterpieces get the red-carpet treatment here in these luxurious editions…academic collections supporting English departments should definitely invest in this volume”—Library Journal; “Stover is to be thanked for his years of Wellsian scholarship”—Public Library Quarterly; “Stover, by presenting the intellectual underpinnings of Wells’ work, has provided a powerful tool for understanding his writings, one sees them more deeply, without losing that earlier sense-of-wonder that originally opened the vistas of the young reader’s mind…a crucial guide to these classics of science fiction”—Fosfax; “two cheers for Stoverism…formidable scholarship…serious students of Wells would be foolish to ignore ‘Stoverism’”—The Wellsian; “Stover should be commended for a painstaking and meticulous editorial commentary”—Utopian Studies; “extensively annotated and analyzed by Stover…annotations are filled with insights into Wells’ writings and philosophy”—C&RL News.