Have you ever wondered what inspired your favorite classic novelist to write their stories? What was happening in their lives to inspire their famous works? What was happening in the world at the time that they wrote those stories you love?

Join Host Bree Carlile while she helps to answer some of the questions you have always had about your favorite classic novelists.

For the next few weeks we will talk about the life of H.G. Wells. What inspired him to write The Time Machine? What else was happening in the world at the time?

Come with us as we release one episode each Tuesday detailing the life and history at the time of your favorite authors.

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Welcome to Bite At A Time Books Behind the Story, where we answer the questions you have about your favorite classic authors.

What inspired your favorite author to write their novels?

What was going on in the world at the time?

Follow along with us as we take tell you what was happening in the world while your favorite authors wrote your favorite classics.

My name is Brie Carlyle and I love to read and wanted to share my passion with listeners like you.

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Wherever you listen to podcasts right now, we are reading The Time Machine.

Today we will be talking about HG Wells and his book The Time Machine.

The Time Machine is a science fiction novella by HG Wells.

Published in 1895.

The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively forward or backward through time.

The term time machine, coined by Wells, is now almost universally used to refer to such a vehicle or device.

Utilizing a frame story set in then present Victorian England, Wells text focuses on a recount of the otherwise anonymous time traveler's journey into the far future.

A work of future history and speculative evolution, Time Machine is interpreted in modern times as a commentary on the increasing inequality and class divisions of Wells era, which he projects as giving rise to two separate human species, the fair childlike Loi and the Savage Samarian Morlocks, distant descendants of the contemporary upper and lower classes, respectively.

It is believed that Wales depiction of the Loi as a race living in plaintitude and abandon was inspired by the utopic romance novel News from Nowhere, though Wells'universe in the novel is notably more Savage and brutal.

In his 1931 preface to the book, Wells wrote that The Time Machine seemed a very undergraduate performance to its now mature writer.

As he looks over it once more, though, he States that the writer feels no remorse for this youthful effort.

However, critics have praised the Novella's handling of its thematic concerns, with Mariana Warner writing that the book was the most significant contribution to understanding Fragments of Desire before Sigmund Freud's.

The Interpretation of Dreams with the novel conveying how close he felt to the melancholy seeker after a door that he once opened onto a luminous vision and could never find again.

The Time Machine has been adapted into two feature films of the same name, as well as two television versions and many comic book adaptations.

It has also indirectly inspired many more works of fiction in many media productions.

Wells had considered the notion of time travel before in a short story titled The Chronic Argonauts.

This work, published in his College newspaper, was the foundation for The Time Machine.

Wells frequently stated that he had thought of using some of this material in a series of articles in the Palma Gazette until the publisher asked him if he could instead write a serial novel on the same theme.

Wells readily agreed and was paid £100, equal to about twelve £0 today on its publication by Hyneman in 1895, which first published the story in serial form in the January to May editions of the New Review, newly under the nominal editorship of Wee Henley, Henry Holt and Company published the first book edition, possibly prepared for a different manuscript, on May 7, 1895.

Heineman published an English edition on May 29.

These two editions are different textually and are commonly referred to as the Holt text and Heineman text, respectively.

Nearly all modern Reprints reproduce the Heineman text.

The story reflects Wells'own socialist political views, his view on life in abundance, and the contemporary angst about industrial relations.

It is also influenced by Ray Lancaster's theories about social degeneration and shares many elements with Edward Volwer Leighton's novel The Power of the Coming Race.

It is also thought that Wells's loi race shares many features with the works of other English Socialists, most notably William Morris, and his work News from Nowhere, in which money is depicted as irrelevant and work is merely undertaken as a form of pleasure.

Other science fiction works of the period, including Edward Bellamy's novel Looking Backward 2018 and the later film Metropolis, dealt with similar themes.

In his later reassessment of the book, published as the 1931 preface to The Time Machine, Wells wrote that the text seemed to him a very undergraduate performance to its now mature writer as he looks over it once more, though he also claims that the writer feels no remorse for this youthful effort.

His preface also notes that the text has lasted as long as the diamond frame safety bicycle, which came in at about the date of its first publication and is assured it will outlive him attesting to the power of the book.

Based on Wells's personal experiences in childhood, the working class literally spent a lot of their time underground.

His own family would spend most of their time in a dark basement kitchen when not being occupied in their father's shop.

Later, his own mother would work as a housekeeper in a house with tunnels below, where the staff and servants lived in underground quarters.

A medical Journal published in 19 Five, would focus on these living quarters for servants in poorly ventilated dark basements.

In his early teens, Wells became a Draper's apprentice having to work in a basement for hours on end.

This work is an early example of the Dying Earth.

Subgenre the portion of the novella that sees the Time Traveler in a distant future where the sun is huge and red, also places the Time Machine within the realm of eschatology that is, the study of the end times, the end of the world, and the ultimate destiny of humankind.

Holt, Reinhardt, and Winston republished the book in 2000, paired with The War of the Worlds, and commissioned Michael Colch to illustrate a new cover art.

The book's protagonist is a Victorian English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey, identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveler.

Similarly, with but one exception, a man named Philby, none of the dinner guests present are ever identified by name, but rather by profession, for example, the psychologist or physical description, for example, the very young man.

The narrator recounts the traveler's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension and demonstrates a tabletop model machine for traveling through the fourth dimension.

He reveals that he has built a machine capable of carrying a person through time and returns at dinner the following week to recount a remarkable tale.

Becoming the new narrator.

In the new narrative, the Time Traveler tests his device.

At first he thinks nothing has happened, but soon finds out he went 5 hours into the future.

He continues forward and sees his house disappear and turn into a lush garden.

The Time Traveler stops an Ad 8002 701 where he meets the Loi, a society of small, elegant childlike adults.

They live in small communities within large and futuristic, yet slowly deteriorating buildings and adhere to a fruit based diet.

His efforts to communicate with them are hampered by their lack of curiosity or discipline.

They appear happy and carefree, but fear the dark, and particularly moonless nights.

Observing them, he finds that they give no response to mysterious nocturnal disappearances, possibly because the thought of it alone frightens them into silence.

After exploring the area around the Lois residences, the Time Traveler reaches the top of a Hill overlooking London.

He concludes that the entire planet has become a garden with little trace of human society or engineering from the hundreds of thousands of years prior, and that communism has at last been achieved.

Returning to the site where he arrived, the Time Traveler is shocked to find his time machine missing, and eventually concludes that it has been dragged by some unknown party into a nearby structure with heavy doors locked from the inside, which resembles a Sphinx.

Luckily, he had removed the machine's levers before leaving it, the Time machine being unable to travel through time without them.

Later, in the dark, he is approached menacingly by the Morlocks apelike Troglodytes, who live in darkness underground and surface only at night.

Exploring one of many Wells that lead to the Morlock's dwellings, he discovers the machinery and industry that make the above ground paradise of the Loi possible.

He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species.

The leisured classes have become the ineffectual Loi and the downtrodden working classes have become the brutal lightfaring Morlocks.

Deducing that the Morlocks have taken his time machine.

He explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that due to a lack of any other means of sustenance, they feed on the Loi.

The Time Traveler theorizes that intelligence is the result of in response to danger.

With no real challenges facing the Loi, they have lost the spirit, intelligence, and physical fitness of humanity at its peak.

Meanwhile, he saves an Loi named WINA from drowning.

As none of the other Lo, I take any notice of her plight, and they develop an innocently, affectionate relationship.

Over the course of several days, he takes Lena with him on an expedition to a distant structure dubbed the palace of Green Porcelain, which turns out to be a derelict Museum.

Here, the Time Traveler finds a fresh supply of matches and fashions a crude weapon against Morlocks, whom he must fight to get back to his machine.

He plans to take WINA back to his own time because the long and tiring journey back to WNA's Home is too much for them.

They stop in the forest for the night.

They are overcome by Morlocks in the night whereby WINA faints.

The Traveler escapes when a small fire he had left behind them to distract the Morlocks catches up to them as a forest fire.

Wiener and the pursuing Morlocks are lost in the fire, and the Time Traveler is devastated over his loss.

The Morlocks open the Sphinx and use the Time machine as bait to capture the Traveler.

Not understanding that he will use it to escape, he reattaches the levers before he travels further ahead to roughly 30 million years from his own time.

There, he sees some of the last living things on a dying Earth, menacing reddish crablike creatures slowly wandering the blood red beaches, chasing enormous butterflies in a world covered in simple, lichenous vegetation.

He continues to make jumps forward through time, seeing Earth's rotation gradually cease, and the sun grow larger, redder, and dimmer, and the world falling silent and freezing as the last degenerate living things die out.

Overwhelmed, he goes back to the machine and returns to his own time.

Arriving at the laboratory just 3 hours after he originally left, he arrives late to his own dinner party, whereupon, after eating, the Time Traveler relates his adventures to his disbelieving visitors, producing as evidence two strange white flowers Wiener had put in his pockets.

The original narrator then takes over and relates that he returned to the Time Traveler's house the next day, finding him preparing for another journey and promising to return in a short time.

However, the narrator reveals that he has waited three years before riding and stating the Time Traveler has not returned from his journey.

A section from the 13th chapter of the serial published in New Review, May 1895, partway down page 577 to page 580.

Line 29 does not appear in either of the 1895 editions of the book.

It was drafted at the suggestion of Wells's editor William Ernest Henley, who wanted Wells to oblige your editor by lengthening the text with, among other things, an illustration of the ultimate degeneracy of humanity.

There was a slight struggle, Wells later recalled, between the writer and W.

E.

Henley, who wanted, he said, to put a little writing into the tale, but the writer was in reaction from that sort of thing.

The Henley interpolations were cut out again, and he had his own way with his text.

This portion of the story was published elsewhere as The Final Men and the Gray Man.

The deleted text was also published by Forrest J.

Ackerman in an issue of the American edition of Perry Rodin.

The deleted text recounts an incident immediately after the traveler's escape from the Morlocks.

He finds himself in the distant future in a frostcovered moorland with simple grasses and black bushes populated with furry, hopping herbivores resembling Kangaroos.

He stuns or kills one with a rock and upon closer examination realizes they are probably the descendants of human loi Morlocks.

A gigantic centipedelike AnthroPod approaches, and the traveler flees into the next day, finding that the creature has apparently eaten the tiny humanoid.

The Dover Press and Eastern Press editions of the novella restore this deleted segments.

Significant scholarly commentary on The Time Machine began from the early 19s 60s, initially contained in various broad studies of Wells's early novels, such as Bernard Bergons The Early HG.

Wells, A study of the scientific romances, and studies of utopias or dystopias in science fiction such as Mark R.

Hillaugust's The Future as Nightmare, HG.

Wells, and The Anti Utopians.

Much critical and textual work was done in the, including the tracing of the very complex publication history of the text, its drafts, and unpublished fragments.

A further resurgence and scholarship came around the time of the novella centenary in 1995, and a major outcome of this was the 1995 conference and substantial anthology of academic papers, which was collected in print as HG.

Wells Perennial Time Machine.

This publication then allowed the development of a guidebook for academic study at Master's and PhD level.

Hg.

Wells The Time Machine a reference guide, the scholarly Journal The Wellsian has published around 20 articles on The Time Machine and a US academic Journal, The Undying Fire, devoted to HG.

Wells Studies, has published three articles since its inception in 2002.

The name Eloi is the Hebrew plural for Elohim, or lesser gods in the Old Testament.

Wells'source for the name Moorlock is less clear.

It may refer to the Canaanite God Moloch, associated with child sacrifice.

The name Moorlock may also be a play on Mollyks, what minors might call themselves, or a Scott's word for rubbish, or a reference to the Morelocai community in Dalmatia, the time machine can be read as a symbolic novel.

The time machine itself can be viewed as a symbol, and there are several symbols in the narrative, including the Sphinx, flowers, and fire.

The statue of the Sphinx is the place where the Morlocks hide the time machine and references the Sphinx and the story of itypus who gives a Riddle that he must first solve before he can pass.

The Sphinx appeared on the cover of the first London edition as requested by Wells and would have been familiar to his readers.

The white flowers can symbolize Wiener's devotion and innocence in contrast with the machinery of the time machine.

They are the only proof that the time traveler's story is true.

Fire symbolizes civilization.

The time traveler uses it to Ward off the Morlocks, but it escapes its control and turns into a forest fire.

The CBS radio anthology Escape adapted The Time machine twice in 1948 starring Jeff Corey, and again in 1950 starring Laurence Dobkin as the traveler.

A script adapted by Irving Ravich was used in both episodes.

The time traveler was named Dudley and was accompanied by his skeptical friend Fowler as they traveled to the year 180.

In 1994, an audio drama was released on cassette and CD by Alien Voices, starring Leonard Nimroy as the time traveler named John in this adaptation and John de Lancie as David Philby.

John Delancy's children Owen Delancy and Keegan de Lancy played the parts of the Loi.

The drama is approximately 2 hours long and is more faithful to the story than several of the film adaptations.

Some changes are made to reflect modern language and knowledge of science.

In 2000, Alan Young read The Time Machine for Seven Voyage Productions, Inc.

In 2016 to celebrate the 120th anniversary of HG Wells novella.

Robert Glynnister starred as the time traveler, with William Gaunt as HG Wells in a new 100 minutes radio dramatization by Philip Osmond, directed by Jeremy Mortimer as part of a BBC Radio science fiction season.

This was the first adaptation of the novella for British radio.

It was first broadcast on February 22, 2009 on BBC Radio Three and later published as a two CD BBC Audiobook.

The adaptation retained the nameless status of The Time Traveler and said it is a true story told to the young Wells by the time traveler, which Wells then retells as an older man to the US journalist Martha whilst fire watching on the roof of Broadcasting House during the Blitz.

It also retained the deleted ending from the novella as a recorded message sent back to Wells from the future by the traveler using a prototype of his machine, with the traveler escaping the Anthropoid creatures to 30 million ad at the end of the universe before disappearing or dying there.

On September 5, 2017, Big Finnish Productions released an adaptation of The Time Machine.

This adaptation was written by Mark Platt and starred Ben Miles as The Time Traveler.

Platt explained in an interview that adapting the Time Machine to audio was not much different from writing Doctor Who and that he could see where some of the roots of early Doctor Who came from.

The first visual adaptation of the book was a live teleplay broadcast from Alexandra Palace on January 25, 1949, by the BBC, which starred Russell Napier as the Time Traveler and married dawn as Wiener.

No recording of this live broadcast was made.

The only record of the production is the script and a few black and white still photographs.

A reading of the script, however, suggests that this teleplay remained fairly faithful to the book.

In 1960, the novella was made into a US science fiction film, also known promotionally as HG.

Wells'the Time Machine, the film starred Rod Taylor, Alan Young, and Yvette MIMO.

The film was produced and directed by George Pal, who also filmed a 1953 version of Welles's The War of the Worlds.

The film won an Academy Award for time lapse photographic effects, showing the world changing rapidly.

In 1993, Rod Taylor hosted Time The Journey Back, reuniting him with Alan Young and Wit Bissel, featuring the only sequel to Mr.

Powell's classic film written by the original screenwriter, David Duncan.

In the special were Academy Award winners, special effects artists WA Chiang and Jean Warren.

Some Classic Pictures produced a television film version of The Time Machine as part of their Classics Illustrated series.

In was a modernization of the Wells story, making the Time Traveler a scientist working for a fictional US defense contractor, the Mega Corporation.

Dr.

Neil Perry.

John Beck, The Time Traveler is described as one of Mega's most reliable contributors by his senior co worker, Branley Wit Bissell, an alumnus of the 1960 adaptation.

Perry's skill is demonstrated by his rapid reprogramming of an off course missile averting a disaster that could destroy Los Angeles.

His reputation secures a grant of 20 million for his time Machine project.

Although nearing completion, the Corporation wants Perry to put the project on hold so that he can head a military weapon development project.

Parry accelerates work on the Time Machine, permitting him to test it before being forced to work on the new project.

The 1960 film was remade in 2002, starring Guy Pearce as the Time Traveler, a mechanical engineering professor named Alexander Halder Gun, Mark Addy as his colleague David Philby, Siena Gilroy as Alex's illfated fiance, Emma Valida Law as Mrs.

Watchett, and Jeremy Irons as the Uber Morlock.

Playing a quick cameo as a shopkeeper was Alan Young, who featured in the 1960 film.

H.

G.

Wells himself can also be said to have a cameo appearance in the form of a photograph on the wall of Alex's home near the front door.

The film was directed by Wells'great grandson, Simon Wells, with an even more revised plot that incorporated the ideas of paradoxes and changing the past.

The place has changed from Richmond, Surrey, to downtown New York City, where the time traveler moves forward in time to find answers to his questions on practical application of time travel.

First in 2030 New York to witness an orbital lunar catastrophe in 2037 before moving on to 802,701 for the main plot.

He later briefly finds himself in 635,000,427 810 with toxic clouds and a world laid waste, presumably by the Morlocks, with devastation and Morlock artifacts stretching out to the horizon.

It was met with mixed reviews and earned $56 million before VHS and DVD sales.

The time machine used a design that was very reminiscent of the one in the Pile film, but was much larger and employed polished turned brass construction along with rotating glass reminiscent of the Frenzel lenses common to lighthouses.

In Wells's original book, The Time Traveler mentioned his scientific papers on optics.

Artigen becomes involved with a female loi named Mara, played by Samantha Mumba, who essentially takes the place of Wiener from the earlier versions of the story.

In this film, the Lo I have, as a tradition preserved a stone language that is identical to English.

The Morlocks are much more barbaric and agile, and the time traveler has a direct impact on the plot.

In Time After Time HG, Wells invents a time machine and shows it to some friends in a manner similar to the first part of the novella.

He does not know that one of his friends is Jack the Ripper.

The Ripper, fleeing police, escapes to the future but without a key which prevents the machine from remaining in the future.

When it does return home, Wells follows him in order to protect the future, which he imagines to be a utopia from the Ripper.

In turn, the film inspired a 2017 TV series of the same name.

Classics Illustrated was the first to adapt the time machine into a comic book format, issuing an American edition in July 1956.

The Classics Illustrated version was published in French by Classiqs Illustras in December 1957 and Classics Illustrated Strato Publications Australian in 1957, and Kudaficha classic Goja, a Finnish edition in November 1957.

There were also Classics Illustrated Greek editions in Swedish and German in 1992 and 2001, and a Canadian reprint of the English edition in 2008.

In 1976, Marvel Comics published a new version of the Time machine as number Two in their Marvel Classics Comics series, with art by Alex NinJo.

This adaptation was originally published in 1973 by Pendulum Press as part of their Pendulum Now Age Classic series.

It was colorised and reprinted by Marvel in 1976.

In 1977, Polish painter Waldemar andiduski adapted the novel as a 22 page comic book written in Polish by Antony Woolsky.

From April 1990, Eternity Comics published a threeSU miniseries adaptation of the Time machine written by Bill Spangler and illustrated by John Ross.

This was collected as a trade paperback graphic novel in 1991.

In 2018, US imprint Insight Comics published an adaptation of the novel as part of their HGL series of comic books, Wells novella has become one of the cornerstones of science fiction literature.

As a result, it has spawned many offspring.

Works expanding on Wells's story include Labelle Valence by Theo Varlett and Andre Blandon by Egon Friday, the Hertford Manuscript by Richard Kalper, first published in 1976, the Space Machine by Christopher Priest, first published in 1970, Silock Night by Kw Jeter, first published in 1979.

Time Machine Two by George Pal and John Mornim, published in The Man Who Loved Morelocks and The Truth About Wiena are two different sequels.

The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter, first published in 1995 in The Richmond Enigma by John Dechancy, the Steamman of the Prairie and The Dark Rider Get Down, a dime novel by Joe R.

Lansdale, first published in The Long Ones.

The 2003 short story on the Surface by Robert J.

Soyer, The Time Traveler and His Machine appear in the story Allen and the Thundered Veil by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill.

David Hayden's novelt The Time Machine, a Sequel, 2010, Simon Baxter's novel The British Empire, Psychic Battalions Against the Morlocks, 2010, Hal Coal Batches, Time Machine Troopers, 2011, Paul Jewelry, The Time Traveler's Tale, Chronicle of a Morlock Captivity, 2012, The Great Illustrated Classics in 1992, beyond the Time Machine by Bert's Lib, 2002, and Tangles in Time by Bert Lib, 2005.

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