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ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED
BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP
H. G. Wells's unforgettable science fiction adventure that explores the future of mankind-and the all-too-human savagery that may spell its doom.
EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES:
·A concise introduction that gives readers important background information
·A chronology of the author's life and work
·A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
·An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations
·Detailed explanatory notes
·Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
·Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
·A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience
Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.
SERIES EDITED BY CYNTHIA BRANTLEY JOHNSON

内容简介

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When the Time Traveller courageously stepped out of his machine for the first time, he found himself in the year 802,700--and everything has changed. In another, more utopian age, creatures seemed to dwell together in perfect harmony. The Time Traveller thought he could study these marvelous beings--unearth their secret and then retum to his own time--until he discovered that his invention, his only avenue of escape, had been stolen. H.G. Well's famous novel of one man's astonishing journey beyond the conventional limits of the imagination first appeared in 1895. It won him immediate recognition, and has been regarded ever since as one of the great masterpieces in the literature of science fiction.

作者简介

Ursula K. Le Guin has published more than one hundred short stories, two collections of essays, eleven books for children, five volumes of poetry, and seventeen novels. She has received numerous awards, including a National Book Award and a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Oregon.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

目　　录

INTRODUCTION
CHRONOLOGY OF H. G. WELLS'S LIFE AND WORK
HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF The Time Machine
THE TIME MACHINE
NOTES
INTERPRETIVE NOTES
CRITICAL EXCERPTS
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INTERESTED READER

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Chapter 1
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him)was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone andtwinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. Thefire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescentlights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed andpassed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced andcaressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there wasthat luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought runs gracefullyfree of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this way-- marking the points with a lean forefinger -- as we sat andlazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we thoughtit) and his fecundity.

`You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvertone or twoideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, forinstance, they taught you at school is founded on amisconception.'

`Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?' saidFilby, an argumentative person with red hair.

'I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonableground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. Youknow of course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness nil,has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has amathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.'

`That is all right,' said the Psychologist.

`Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have areal existence.'

Chapter 1 
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him)
was expounding a recondite matter to us. His grey eyes shone and
twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated. The
fire burned brightly, and the soft radiance of the incandescent
lights in the lilies of silver caught the bubbles that flashed and
passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and
caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was
that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought runs gracefully
free of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this way
-- marking the points with a lean forefinger -- as we sat and
lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we thought
it) and his fecundity. 
 
`You must follow me carefully. I shall have to controvertone or two
ideas that are almost universally accepted. The geometry, for
instance, they taught you at school is founded on a
misconception.' 
 
`Is not that rather a large thing to expect us to begin upon?' said
Filby, an argumentative person with red hair. 
 
'I do not mean to ask you to accept anything without reasonable
ground for it. You will soon admit as much as I need from you. You
know of course that a mathematical line, a line of thickness nil,
has no real existence. They taught you that? Neither has a
mathematical plane. These things are mere abstractions.' 
 
`That is all right,' said the Psychologist. 
 
`Nor, having only length, breadth, and thickness, can a cube have a
real existence.' 
 
`There I object,' said Filby. `Of course a solid body may exist.
All real things -- ' 
 
`So most people think. But wait a moment. Can an instantaneous cube
exist?' 
 
`Don't follow you,' said Filby. 
 
`Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real
existence?' 
 
Filby became pensive. `Clearly,' the Time Traveller proceeded, `any
real body must have extension in four directions: it must have
Length, Breadth, Thickness, and -- Duration. But through a natural
infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we
incline to overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions,
three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time.
There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between
the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that
our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the
latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.' 
 
`That,' said a very young man, making spasmodic efforts to relight
his cigar over the lamp; `that ... very clear indeed.' 
 
`Now, it is very remarkable that this is so extensively
overlooked,' continued the Time Traveller, with a slight accession
of cheerfulness. `Really this is what is meant by the Fourth
Dimension, though some people who talk about the Fourth Dimension
do not know they mean it. It is only another way of looking at
Time. There is no difference between Time and any of the three
dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it.
But some foolish people have got hold of the wrong side of that
idea. You have all heard what they have to say about this Fourth
Dimension?' 
 
`I have not,' said the Provincial Mayor. 
 
`It is simply this. That Space, as our mathematicians have it, is
spoken of as having three dimensions, which one may call Length,
Breadth, and Thickness, and is always definable by reference to
three planes, each at right angles to the others. But some
philosophical people have been asking why three dimensions
particularly -- why not another direction at right angles to the
other three? -- and have even tried to construct a Four-Dimension
geometry. Professor Simon Newcomb was expounding this to the New
York Mathematical Society only a month or so ago. You know how on a
flat surface, which has only two dimensions, we can represent a
figure of a three dimensional solid, and similarly they think that
by models of three dimensions they could represent one of four --
if they could master the perspective of the thing. See?' 
 
`I think so,' murmured the Provincial Mayor; and, knitting his
brows, he lapsed into an introspective state, his lips moving as
one who repeats mystic words. `Yes, I think I see it now,' he said
after some time, brightening in a quite transitory manner. 
 
`Well, I do not mind telling you I have been at work upon this
geometry of Four Dimensions for some time. Some of my results are
curious. For instance, here is a portrait of a man at eight years
old, another at fifteen, another at seventeen, another at
twenty-three, and so on. All these are evidently sections, as it
were, Three-Dimensional representations of his Four-Dimensioned
being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.' 
 
`Scientific people,' proceeded the Time Traveller, after the pause
required for the proper assimilation of this, `know very well that
Time is only a kind of Space. Here is a popular scientific diagram,
a weather record. This line I trace with my finger shows the
movement of the barometer. Yesterday it was so high, yesterday
night it fell, then this morning it rose again, and so gently
upward to here. Surely the mercury did not trace this line in any
of the dimensions of Space generally recognized? But certainly it
traced such a line, and that line, therefore, we must conclude was
along the Time-Dimension.' 
 
`But,' said the Medical Man, staring hard at a coal in the fire,
`if Time is really only a fourth dimension of Space, why is it, and
why has it always been, regarded as something different? And why
cannot we move in Time as we move about in the other dimensions of
Space?' 
 
The Time Traveller smiled. `Are you sure we can move freely in
Space? Right and left we can go, backward and forward freely
enough, and men always have done so. I admit we move freely in two
dimensions. But how about up and down? Gravitation limits us
there.' 
 
`Not exactly,' said the Medical Man. `There are balloons.' 
 
`But before the balloons, save for spasmodic jumping and the
inequalities of the surface, man had no freedom of vertical
movement.' 
 
`Still they could move a little up and down,' said the Medical
Man. 
 
`Easier, far easier down than up.' 
 
`And you cannot move at all in Time, you cannot get away from the
present moment.' 
 
`My dear sir, that is just where you are wrong. That is just where
the whole world has gone wrong. We are always getting away from the
present movement. Our mental existences, which are immaterial and
have no dimensions, are passing along the Time-Dimension with a
uniform velocity from the cradle to the grave. Just as we should
travel down if we began our existence fifty miles above the earth's
surface.' 
 
`But the great difficulty is this,' interrupted the Psychologist.
`You can move about in all directions of Space, but you cannot move
about in Time.' 
 
`That is the germ of my great discovery. But you are wrong to say
that we cannot move about in Time. For instance, if I am recalling
an incident very vividly I go back to the instant of its
occurrence: I become absent-minded, as you say. I jump back for a
moment. Of course we have no means of staying back for any length
of Time, any more than a savage or an animal has of staying six
feet above the ground. But a civilized man is better off than the
savage in this respect. He can go up against gravitation in a
balloon, and why should he not hope that ultimately he may be able
to stop or accelerate his drift along the Time-Dimension, or even
turn about and travel the other way?' 
 
`Oh, this,' began Filby, `is all -- ' 
 
`Why not?' said the Time Traveller. 
 
`It's against reason,' said Filby. 
 
`What reason?' said the Time Traveller. 
 
`You can show black is white by argument,' said Filby, `but you
will never convince me.' 
 
`Possibly not,' said the Time Traveller. `But now you begin to see
the object of my investigations into the geometry of Four
Dimensions. Long ago I had a vague inkling of a machine -- ' 
 
`To travel through Time!' exclaimed the Very Young Man. 
 
`That shall travel indifferently in any direction of Space and
Time, as the driver determines.' 
 
Filby contented himself with laughter. 
 
`But I have experimental verification,' said the Time
Traveller. 
 
`It would be remarkably convenient for the historian,' the
Psychologist suggested. `One might travel back and verify the
accepted account of the Battle of Hastings, for instance!' 
 
`Don't you think you would attract attention?' said the Medical
Man. `Our ancestors had no great tolerance for anachronisms.' 
 
`One might get one's Greek from the very lips of Homer and Plato,'
the Very Young Man thought. 
 
`In which case they would certainly plough you for the Little-go.
The German scholars have improved Greek so much.' 
 
`Then there is the future,' said the Very Young Man. `Just think!
One might invest all one's money, leave it to accumulate at
interest, and hurry on ahead!' 
 
`To discover a society,' said I, `erected on a strictly communistic
basis.' 
 
`Of all the wild extravagant theories!' began the
Psychologist. 
 
`Yes, so it seemed to me, and so I never talked of it until --
' 
 
`Experimental verification!' cried I. `You are going to verify
that?' 
 
`The experiment!' cried Filby, who was getting brain-weary. 
 
`Let's see your experiment anyhow,' said the Psychologist, `though
it's all humbug, you know.' 
 
The Time Traveller smiled round at us. Then, still smiling faintly,
and with his hands deep in his trousers pockets, he walked slowly
out of the room, and we heard his slippers shuffling down the long
passage to his laboratory. 
 
The Psychologist looked at us. `I wonder what he's got?' 
 
`Some sleight-of-hand trick or other,' said the Medical Man, and
Filby tried to tell us about a conjurer he had seen at Burslem; but
before he had finished his preface the Time Traveller came back,
and Filby's anecdote collapsed. 
 
The thing the Time Traveller held in his hand was a glittering
metallic framework, scarcely larger than a small clock, and very
delicately made. There was ivory in it, and some transparent
crystalline substance. And now I must be explicit, for this that
follows -- unless his explanation is to be accepted -- is an
absolutely unaccountable thing. He took one of the small octagonal
tables that were scattered about the room, and set it in front of
the fire, with two legs on the hearthrug. On this table he placed
the mechanism. Then he drew up a chair, and sat down. The only
other object on the table was a small shaded lamp, the bright light
of which fell upon the model. There were also perhaps a dozen
candles about, two in brass candlesticks upon the mantel and
several in sconces, so that the room was brilliantly illuminated. I
sat in a low arm-chair nearest the fire, and I drew this forward so
as to be almost between the Time Traveller and the fire-place.
Filby sat behind him, looking over his shoulder. The Medical Man
and the Provincial Mayor watched him in profile from the right, the
Psychologist from the left. The Very Young Man stood behind the
Psychologist. We were all on the alert. It appears incredible to me
that any kind of trick, however subtly conceived and however
adroitly done, could have been played upon us under these
conditions. 
 
The Time Traveller looked at us, and then at the mechanism. `Well?'
said the Psychologist. 
 
`This little affair,' said the Time Traveller, resting his elbows
upon the table and pressing his hands together above the apparatus,
`is only a model. It is my plan for a machine to travel through
time. You will notice that it looks singularly askew, and that
there is an odd twinkling appearance about this bar, as though it
was in some way unreal.' He pointed to the part with his finger.
`Also, here is one little white lever, and here is another.' 
 
The Medical Man got up out of his chair and peered into the thing.
`It's beautifully made,' he said. 
 
`It took two years to make,' retorted the Time Traveller. Then,
when we had all imitated the action of the Medical Man, he said:
`Now I want you clearly to understand that this lever, being
pressed over, sends the machine gliding into the future, and this
other reverses the motion. This saddle represents the seat of a
time traveller. Presently I am going to press the lever, and off
the machine will go. It will vanish, pass into future Time, and
disappear. Have a good look at the thing. Look at the table too,
and satisfy yourselves there is no trickery. I don't want to waste
this model, and then be told I'm a quack.' 
 
There was a minute's pause perhaps. The Psychologist seemed about
to speak to me, but changed his mind. Then the Time Traveller put
forth his finger towards the lever. `No,' he said suddenly. `Lend
me your hand.' And turning to the Psychologist, he took that
individual's hand in his own and told him to put out his
forefinger. So that it was the Psychologist himself who sent forth
the model Time Machine on its interminable voyage. We all saw the
lever turn. I am absolutely certain there was no trickery. There
was a breath of wind, and the lamp flame jumped. One of the candles
on the mantel was blown out, and the little machine suddenly swung
round, became indistinct, was seen as a ghost for a second perhaps,
as an eddy of faintly glittering brass and ivory; and it was gone
-- vanished! Save for the lamp the table was bare. 
 
Everyone was silent for a minute. Then Filby said he was
damned. 
 
The Psychologist recovered from his stupor, and suddenly looked
under the table. At that the Time Traveller laughed cheerfully.
`Well?' he said, with a reminiscence of the Psychologist. Then,
getting up, he went to the tobacco jar on the mantel, and with his
back to us began to fill his pipe. 
 
We stared at each other. `Look here,' said the Medical Man, `are
you in earnest about this? Do you seriously believe that that
machine has travelled into time?' 
 
`Certainly,' said the Time Traveller, stooping to light a spill at
the fire. Then he turned, lighting his pipe, to look at the
Psychologist's face. (The Psychologist, to show that he was not
unhinged, helped himself to a cigar and tried to light it uncut.)
`What is more, I have a big machine nearly finished in there' -- he
indicated the laboratory -- `and when that is put together I mean
to have a journey on my own account.' 
 
`You mean to say that that machine has travelled into the future?'
said Filby. 
 
`Into the future or the past -- I don't, for certain, know
which.' 
 
After an interval the Psychologist had an inspiration. `It must
have gone into the past if it has gone anywhere,' he said. 
 
`Why?' said the Time Traveller. 
 
`Because I presume that it has not moved in space, and if it
travelled into the future it would still be here all this time,
since it must have travelled through this time.' 
 
`But,' I said, `if it travelled into the past it would have been
visible when we came first into this room; and last Thursday when
we were here; and the Thursday before that; and so forth!' 
 
`Serious objections,' remarked the Provincial Mayor, with an air of
impartiality, turning towards the Time Traveller. 
 
`Not a bit,' said the Time Traveller, and, to the Psychologist:
`You think. You can explain that. It's presentation below the
threshold, you know, diluted presentation.' 
 
`Of course,' said the Psychologist, and reassured us. `That's a
simple point of psychology. I should have thought of it. It's plain
enough, and helps the paradox delightfully. We cannot see it, nor
can we appreciate this machine, any more than we can the spoke of a
wheel spinning, or a bullet flying through the air. If it is
traveling through time fifty times or a hundred times faster than
we are, if it gets through a minute while we get through a second,
the impression it creates will of course be only one-fiftieth or
one-hundredth of what it would make if it were not travelling in
time. That's plain enough.' He passed his hand through the space in
which the machine had been. `You see?' he said, laughing. 
 
We sat and stared at the vacant table for a minute or so. Then the
Time Traveller asked us what we thought of it all. 
 
`It sounds plausible enough to-night,' said the Medical Man; `but
wait until to-morrow. Wait for the common sense of the
morning.' 
 
`Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?' asked the Time
Traveller. And therewith, taking the lamp in his hand, he led the
way down the long, draughty corridor to his laboratory. I remember
vividly the flickering light, his queer, broad head in silhouette,
the dance of the shadows, how we all followed him, puzzled but
incredulous, and how there in the laboratory we beheld a larger
edition of the little mechanism which we had seen vanish from
before our eyes. Parts were of nickel, parts of ivory, parts had
certainly been filed or sawn out of rock crystal. The thing was
generally complete, but the twisted crystalline bars lay unfinished
upon the bench beside some sheets of drawings, and I took one up
for a better look at it. Quartz it seemed to be. 
 
`Look here,' said the Medical Man, `are you perfectly serious? Or
is this a trick -- like that ghost you showed us last
Christmas?' 
 
`Upon that machine,' said the Time Traveller, holding the lamp
aloft, `I intend to explore time. Is that plain? I was never more
serious in my life.' 
 
None of us quite knew how to take it. 
 
I caught Filby's eye over the shoulder of the Medical Man, and he
winked at me solemnly.

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