The Time Machine
H. G. Wells. The Time Machine. London: William Heinemann, 1895.
This book made the reputation of H. G. Wells and launched the time-travel genre. Shown here in its first edition, The Time Machine is the story of an English inventor who creates a machine that takes him over 800,000 years into the future, where he finds a seemingly harmonious society living alongside an unsavory underclass. While it is a sophisticated meditation on the future, exploring such themes as evolution and technological dystopia, the text also offers a pointed commentary on contemporary capitalism. Wells is considered one of the forerunners of modern science fiction.