The Time Machine

An inventor sets out a theory of time as a fourth dimension, then vanishes in a machine of his own making. He returns exhausted to describe the year 802,701, a world of gardens inhabited by a frail and idle people, the Eloi. Other creatures live below the surface, and he gradually understands what binds the two species together. The story explores evolution, the division of classes carried to its conclusion and the distant fate of humanity. Wells establishes time travel as a subject for fiction and an instrument of social criticism.