The Time Machine and The Invisible Man (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

Book Description
“His goggling spectacles and ghastly bandaged face under the penthouse of his hat came with a disagreeable suddenness out of the darkness,” Wells wrote in The Invisible Man. H. G. Wells described wonders of science and imagined possible futures, meanwhile critiquing his own society and contributing more to the science fiction genre than almost any other writer. This collection brings two of Wells’s most beloved classics together in one volume. It also includes a discussion of the films inspired by the novels, reviews of Wells’s works, and discussion questions.

Alfred Mac Adam is a professor of Latin American and comparative literature at Barnard College. He is a translator of Latin American fiction and writes extensively on art. Between 1984 and 2002, Mac Adam was the editor of Review: Latin American Literature and Arts, a publication of the Americas Society. Mac Adam also wrote the introduction to the Barnes & Noble Classics forthcoming edition of Wells's War of the Worlds.



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The Time Machine, H. G. Wells’s first novel, is a tale of Darwinian evolution taken to its extreme. Its hero, a young scientist, travels 800,000 years into the future and discovers a dying earth populated by two strange humanoid species: the brutal Morlocks and the gentle but nearly helpless Eloi. The Invisible Man mixes chilling terror, suspense, and acute psychological understanding into a tale of an equally adventurous scientist who discovers the formula for invisibility—a secret that drives him mad. Immensely popular during his lifetime, H. G. Wells, along with Jules Verne, is credited with inventing science fiction. This new volume offers two of Wells’s best-loved and most critically acclaimed “scientific romances.” In each, the author grounds his fantastical imagination in scientific fact and conjecture while lacing his narrative with vibrant action, not merely to tell a “ripping yarn,” but to offer a biting critique on the world around him. “The strength of Mr. Wells,” wrote Arnold Bennett, “lies in the fact that he is not only a scientist, but a most talented student of character, especially quaint character. He will not only ingeniously describe for you a scientific miracle, but he will set down that miracle in the midst of a country village, sketching with excellent humour the inn-landlady, the blacksmith, the chemist’s apprentice, the doctor, and all the other persons whom the miracle affects.”


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