|
|
The Time Machine
An Invention
by
H. G. Wells
|
|
|
This is
the 1924 Heinemann Edition |
|
|
Front cover and spine
Further images of this book are
shown below
|
|
|
|
|
|
Publisher and place of
publication |
|
Dimensions in inches (to
the nearest quarter-inch) |
London: William Heinemann Ltd |
|
4½ inches wide x 7 inches tall
Please note the book's small dimensions. |
|
|
|
Edition |
|
Length |
1924 [first
published 1895] |
|
(viii) + 152 pages |
|
|
|
Condition of covers |
|
Internal condition |
Original red cloth blocked in black. The
covers are rubbed, heavily in places, faded and dull. There is a distinct
line of fading on the top section of the front cover, fading around the
other edges, significant variation in colour, and the black blocking
partially rubbed away. It is a similar situation on the rear cover, with
pronounced fading along the edges, together with a black smudge and some
smaller areas of staining. The spine has faded badly with total loss of
original colour and some soiling. There is also a shallow vertical crease
down the centre. The spine ends and corners are bumped and frayed. There is
a forward spine lean. |
|
There is a previous owner's name inscribed
prominently in red ink capitals on the very browned and discoloured front
free end-paper (please see the final image below). The paper has tanned
significantly with age and there is widespread scattered foxing, mainly
confined to the margins. Additionally, some pages have grubby marks or small
stains. There is separation between the inner
gatherings, some of which are very badly cracked, with that between pages
24 and 25 probably being the worst example (please see the image below). The
corners are very bruised from the external bumping. The edge of the text
block is grubby, dust-stained and foxed, with the foxing extending into the
margins. |
|
|
|
Dust-jacket present? |
|
Other
comments |
No |
|
Quite a well-used volume, with noticeably
faded covers, marked tanning to the paper and edge-foxing; however, pre-Second World War
examples are becoming scarce. |
|
|
|
Illustrations,
maps, etc |
|
Contents |
NONE : No illustrations are called
for |
|
Please see below for details |
|
|
|
Post & shipping
information |
|
Payment options |
The packed weight is approximately
400 grams.
Full shipping/postage information is
provided in a panel
at the end of this listing.
|
|
Payment options
:
-
UK buyers: cheque (in
GBP), debit card, credit card (Visa, MasterCard but
not Amex), PayPal
-
International buyers: credit card
(Visa, MasterCard but not Amex), PayPal
Full payment information is provided in a
panel at the end of this listing. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Time Machine
Contents
I Introduction
II The Machine
III The Time Traveller Returns
IV Time Travelling
V In the Golden Age
VI The Sunset of Mankind
VII A Sudden Shock
VIII Explanation
IX The Morlocks
X When Night Came
XI The Palace of Green Porcelain
XII In the Darkness
XIII The Trap of the White Sphinx
XIV The Further Vision
XV The Time Traveller’s Return
XVI After the Story
Epilogue
|
|
|
|
|
The Time Machine
Excerpt:
I.
Introduction
The Time Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him)
was expounding a recondite matter to us. His pale grey eyes shone
and twinkled, and his usually pale face was flushed and animated.
The fire burnt 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 controvert one 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-Dimensional 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 recognised? 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 so 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 moment. 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 civilised 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?” . . .
|
|
|
|
|
|
Please note: to avoid opening the book out, with the
risk of damaging the spine, some of the pages were slightly raised on the
inner edge when being scanned, which has resulted in some blurring to the
text and a
shadow on the inside edge of the final images. Colour reproduction is shown
as accurately as possible but please be aware that some colours
are difficult to scan and may result in a slight variation from
the colour shown below to the actual colour.
In line with eBay guidelines on picture sizes, some of the illustrations may
be shown enlarged for greater detail and clarity.
There is a previous owner's name inscribed
prominently in red ink capitals on the very browned and discoloured
front free end-paper:
|
|
|
|
|
|
U.K. buyers:
To estimate the
“packed
weight” each book is first weighed and then
an additional amount of 150 grams is added to allow for the packaging
material (all
books are securely wrapped and posted in a cardboard book-mailer).
The weight of the book and packaging is then rounded up to the
nearest hundred grams to arrive at the postage figure. I make no charge for packaging materials and
do not seek to profit
from postage and packaging. Postage can be combined for multiple purchases. |
Packed weight of this item : approximately 400 grams
Postage and payment options to U.K. addresses: |
-
Details of the various postage options can be obtained by selecting
the “Postage and payments” option at the head of this
listing (above).
-
Payment can be made by: debit card, credit
card (Visa or MasterCard, but not Amex), cheque (payable to
"G Miller", please), or PayPal.
-
Please contact me with name,
address and payment details within seven days of the end of the
listing;
otherwise I reserve the right to cancel the sale and re-list the item.
-
Finally, this should be an
enjoyable experience for both the buyer and seller and I hope
you will find me very easy to deal with. If you have a question
or query about any aspect (postage, payment, delivery options
and so on), please do not hesitate to contact me.
|
|
|
|
|
International
buyers:
To estimate the
“packed
weight” each book is first weighed and then
an additional amount of 150 grams is added to allow for the packaging
material (all
books are securely wrapped and posted in a cardboard book-mailer).
The weight of the book and packaging is then rounded up to the
nearest hundred grams to arrive at the shipping figure.
I make no charge for packaging materials and do not
seek to profit
from shipping and handling.
Shipping can
usually be combined for multiple purchases
(to a
maximum
of 5 kilograms in any one parcel with the exception of Canada, where
the limit is 2 kilograms). |
Packed weight of this item : approximately 400 grams
International Shipping options: |
Details of the postage options
to various countries (via Air Mail) can be obtained by selecting
the “Postage and payments” option at the head of this listing
(above) and then selecting your country of residence from the drop-down
list. For destinations not shown or other requirements, please contact me before buying.
Due to the
extreme length of time now taken for deliveries, surface mail is no longer
a viable option and I am unable to offer it even in the case of heavy items.
I am afraid that I cannot make any exceptions to this rule.
Payment options for international buyers: |
-
Payment can be made by: credit card (Visa
or MasterCard, but not Amex) or PayPal. I can also accept a cheque in GBP [British
Pounds Sterling] but only if drawn on a major British bank.
-
Regretfully, due to extremely
high conversion charges, I CANNOT accept foreign currency : all payments
must be made in GBP [British Pounds Sterling]. This can be accomplished easily
using a credit card, which I am able to accept as I have a separate,
well-established business, or PayPal.
-
Please contact me with your name and address and payment details within
seven days of the end of the listing; otherwise I reserve the right to
cancel the sale and re-list the item.
-
Finally, this should be an enjoyable experience for
both the buyer and seller and I hope you will find me very easy to deal
with. If you have a question or query about any aspect (shipping,
payment, delivery options and so on), please do not hesitate to contact
me.
Prospective international
buyers should ensure that they are able to provide credit card details or
pay by PayPal within 7 days from the end of the listing (or inform me that
they will be sending a cheque in GBP drawn on a major British bank). Thank you.
|
|
|
|
|
(please note that the
book shown is for illustrative purposes only and forms no part of this
listing)
Book dimensions are given in
inches, to the nearest quarter-inch, in the format width x height.
Please
note that, to differentiate them from soft-covers and paperbacks, modern
hardbacks are still invariably described as being ‘cloth’ when they are, in
fact, predominantly bound in paper-covered boards pressed to resemble cloth. |
|
|
|
|
Fine Books for Fine Minds |
I value your custom (and my
feedback rating) but I am also a bibliophile : I want books to arrive in the
same condition in which they were dispatched. For this reason, all books are
securely wrapped in tissue and a protective covering and are
then posted in a cardboard container. If any book is
significantly not as
described, I will offer a full refund. Unless the
size of the book precludes this, hardback books with a dust-jacket are
usually provided with a clear film protective cover, while
hardback books without a dust-jacket are usually provided with a rigid clear cover.
The Royal Mail, in my experience, offers an excellent service, but things
can occasionally go wrong.
However, I believe it is my responsibility to guarantee delivery.
If any book is lost or damaged in transit, I will offer a full refund.
Thank you for looking.
|
|
|
|
|
Please also
view my other listings for
a range of interesting books
and feel free to contact me if you require any additional information
Design and content © Geoffrey Miller |
|
|
|
|
|