The Time MachineandThe War of the WorldsH. G. WellsIntroductionBackgroundDiscussion Starters Menu

The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds: Introduction

Is space the final frontier?

The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds: Introduction

What about time?

The Time Machine: Introduction

in the Time Machine he has invented.In The Time Machine a man known only as the Time Traveller, a brilliant scientist and inventor, believes humans can travel through time His friends are skeptical.

The Time Machine: Introduction

He tells them of his rush forward in timeto the year 802,701.The world is in ruins.But the people he meetsthe Eloiseem happy and healthy, although small.

The Time Machine: Introduction

But the Eloi are afraid of something:the Morlocks,pale, apelike creatures who live underground.

The Time Machine: Introduction

Determined to learn the secrets of this strange place, the Time Traveller climbs down a mysterious, well-like shaftand is nearly captured by the Morlocks.

The Time Machine: Introduction

Can a simple thing like a match save the Time Traveller?And who are the real descendants of the Time Travellers erathe Eloi or the Morlocks?What will happen to his Eloi friend Weena?

The War of the Worlds: Introduction

In The War of the Worlds, the narrator watches strange flashes of light emerge from the planet Mars, night after night.But the Thing that lands near London one Friday is no meteorits the beginning of a Martian invasion of Earth.Theyre probably meteors, right?

The War of the Worlds: Introduction

Earthlings are powerless to defend themselves against Martian technology.By Tuesday, the Martians control London.There is panic in the streets as the people flee.

The War of the Worlds: Introduction

Cylinders carrying Martians continue to fall from the sky. How strange they are! How weak and clumsy compared to their sleek, amazing machines!In hiding, the narrator observes the conquerors through a peephole.

The War of the Worlds: Introduction

Finally, less than two weeks after the first Martians arrived, the narrator emerges from hiding.Has human life been erased from Earth?The stillness is eerie.

The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds: Background

Herbert George Wells (18661946) was a biologist, a teacher, a historian, and a social criticas well as a writer of novels and short stories.After earning his degree in 1889, Wells went to work as a college biology teacher. Soon, inspired by the science fantasies of Jules Verne, Wells decided to try to write his own scientific romance.

The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds: Background

Intrigued by the possibility of time travel, Wells reworked an earlier essay into The Time Machine (1895). It was an immediate success.Other popular fiction followed quickly: The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) The Invisible Man (1897) The War of the Worlds (1898) The First Men in the Moon (1901)

The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds: Background

Success freed Wells to write fulltimeand, ironically, to abandon science fiction.Millions read his best-selling history of the world, The Outline of History (1920) and other works.Wells became increasingly pessimistic. He died a year after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, discouraged about the future of humanity.

The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds: Background

Jules Verne (18281905)Popular French writerInspired later inventors of submarines and moon rocketsMajor worksA Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (186970)Around the World in 80 Days (1873)

The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds: Background

scientific romancesimplified, larger-than-life charactersA hero that sets out on difficult questbelievable (although imaginary) technologyscientific conceptsscientific romancescientific romance

The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds: Background

In 1877, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli observed a complex system of canaliItalian for channelson Mars. Schiaparelli thought the canali were natural, but he left open the possibility that they might be artificial.

The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds: Background

Later, the American astronomer Percival Lowell numbered and mapped the canali.When Lowell published his first work about Mars in 1895, he translated canali as canalsfueling the popular idea that the channels had been built by an advanced civilization.

The Time Machine and The War of the WorldsDiscuss (1) H. G. Wells was interested in the impact of scientific and technological advances on human behavior and society. How does technology benefit individuals and society? Are there downsides to rapid advances in science and technology?

The Time Machine and The War of the WorldsDiscuss (2) What if time travel were actually possible?What dangers might time travel present for the traveler? Would there be dangers for the people in the periods the traveler visits? If so, could those dangers be avoided, and how?