H.G. Wells and The Time Machine

1. H.G. Wells and The Time Machine Introductory Notes

2. Wells and Socialism • Socialism vs. Communism • Longman Dictionary of American English defines socialism as “an economic and political system that tries to give equal opportunities to all people, and in which most businesses belong to the government.” • Communism is “a political system in which the government controls all the production of food and goods and there is no privately owned property” (“Communism”). • Wells’ political beliefs were described as socialist (“H.G. Wells Biography”).

3. Hope for a Better World • Wells hoped for a “type of global socialism” and he longed for a “single government for the entire world” (“H.G. Wells Biography”).

4. A Hopeless Conclusion • Near the end of his life, Wells wrote “a pessimistic essay in which [he] contemplate[d] the end of humanity” (“H.G. Wells Biography”).

5. The Novel • Set in London, 1895 • Narrator, first person point of view • The time traveler is NOT the narrator • A story-within-a-story (once the time traveler relates his story to the narrator) • Wells was British, so some words are spelled differently (e.g., “civilisation” and “traveller”)