The Time Machine / H.G. Wells

'Great shapes like big machines rose out of the dimness, and cast grotesque black shadows, in which dim spectral Morlocks sheltered from the glare'. When a Victorian scientist propels himself into the year 802, 701 AD, he is initially delighted to find that suffering has been replaced by beauty, contentment and peace. Entranced at first by the Eloi, an elfin species descended from man, he soon realises that this beautiful people are simply remnants of a once-great culture - now weak and childishly afraid of the dark. They have every reason to be afraid: in deep tunnels beneath their paradise lurks another race descended from humanity - the sinister Morlocks. And when the scientist's time machine vanishes, it becomes clear he must search these tunnels, if he is ever to return to his own era.

In the space of less than four years, H. G. Wells (1866-1946) published four of the most influential, original and hair-raising of all works of science-fiction. In a life of tireless experiment, travelling and intellectual engagement, Wells was both a leading public figure and one of the great imaginers of the modern world. Wells's other science-fiction classics The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds are also published in the Penguin English Library.