The source of the 16 essays collected here was a four-day centenary conference on The time machine that took place in July 1995 at Imperial College, London, and was attended by humanists, scientists, and writers from around the world. The essays fall into three sections; the first offers strong revisionist readings that demonstrate the text's continuing appeal 100 years after it was written. The second section explores the intellectual currents, both literary and scientific, that gave rise to Wells's novel. Essays in the final section emphasize the story's broad and deep influence on modern narrative. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Acclaimed as a work of genius when first published in 1895,
The Time Machine represents a revolution in storytelling. H. G. Wells's first--and greatest--novel has been recognized worldwide as a founding text of the science fiction genre and one of the most seminal narratives of the last hundred years.
This collection of essays offers a series of original, penetrating, and wide-ranging perspectives on Wells's masterpiece by an international group of major Wells and science fiction scholars. The authors explore such textual topics as the narrative techniques and mythological undertones of the novel as well as its contribution to modern ideas of time and evolution and its focusing of the intellectual cross-currents of the late nineteenth century. This insightful volume captures the innovative imagination, richness, and fascinating ambiguity that resulted in a classic literary work and demonstrates that Wells's novel is both a visionary story and an unstoppable idea.
Note on the Text vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction: The Time Machines Centennial Audience xi George Slusser Daniele Chatelain PART 1 Eternal Readability: A Work for All Time The Time Machine as a First Novel: Myth and Allegory in Wellss Romance 3(9) J. R. Hammond Taking It as a Story: The Beautiful Lie of The Time Machine 12(15) Robert Crossley Was the Time Machine Necessary? 27(12) Paul Alkon The Rebirth of a Scientific Intelligence: Or, From ``Traveller to ``Travailer in The Time Machine 39(11) Frank Scafella Time Before and After The Time Machine 50(15) W. M. S. Russell PART 2 Currents of Its Time: Neoteny, Anthropology, Society, Numerology, Imperiality Wells and Neoteny 65(11) Kirby Farrell The Time Machine and Victorian Mythology 76(21) Sylvia Hardy The Time Machine and Wellss Social Trajectory 97(13) John Huntington From Rome to Richmond: Wells, Universal History, and Prophetic Time 110(12) Patrick Parrinder Change in the City: The Time Travellers London and the ``Baseless Fabric of His Vision 122(15) Carlo Pagetti PART 3 The Rewriting: The Time Machine in the Twentieth Century and Beyond Time at the End of Its Tether: H. G. Wells and the Subversion of Master Narrative 137(13) Larry W. Caldwell The Legacy of H. G. Wellss The Time Machine: Destabilization and Observation 150(10) Joshua Stein Wells and the Sequency-Simultaneity Paradox: Heinleins Rewriting of The Time Machine in ``By His Bootstraps 160(16) Daniele Chatelain George Slusser A Revision and a Gloss: Michael Bishops Postmodern Interrogation of H. G. Wellss The Time Machine 176(12) David Leon Higdon Doomed Formicary versus the Technological Sublime 188(7) Brian W. Aldiss Afterword: In the Company of the Immortals 195(12) Patrick Parrinder Contributors 207(4) Index 211
George Slusser is a professor of comparative literature and director of the Eaton Program for Science Fiction and Fantasy Studies at the University of California, Riverside. Patrick Partinder is a professor of English at the University of Reading, England, and is a vice president of the H. G. Wells Society. Daniele Chatelain is a professor of French at the University of Redlands.
