The Time Machine

The first great novel to imagine time travel, The Time Machine (1895) follows its narrator on an incredible journey that takes him finally to the earth's last moments--and perhaps his own. When a Victorian scientist invents a machine that allows him to travel to the year A.D. 802,701, he discovers a highly evolved society of people called Eloi, for whom suffering has apparently been replaced by refinement and harmony. First impressions are misleading, however, and he soon realizes that the Eloi are the weak and helpless descendants of a once-great civilization, living in fear of the brutish Morlocks who lurk in tunnels beneath them. The true relationship between these two groups leads the narrator to a horrifying insight into the the fate of mankind and its roots in his own time.