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''[http://pd.sparknotes.com/lit/timemachine/ The Time Machine]'' is a classic tale of [[Time Travel]], and the first to use a scientific mechanism to achieve it. Where his predecessors had used [[All Just a Dream|visions]] to achieve the time travel, and only sent their protagonists [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]], [[HGH. G. Wells]] had his protagonist invent an actual time machine and travel into the far future.
 
The story begins in [[Victorian London]] with the nameless narrator talking to his equally nameless friends, among them the Time Traveller, who casually describes his invention, and gives the assembled friends a demonstration. The next week, the Time Traveller appears, much the worse for wear, saying he has been to the year AD 802,701.
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The time traveller decides this is the inevitable result of class struggle. The parasitic rich have degenerated into the effete Eloi while the working classes, treated like beasts, have become just that. The time traveller later mentions that this explanation may be wrong, but never gives an alternative.
 
After a succession of adventures, the time traveller returns to his machine, takes a short trip [[To the Future Andand Beyond]] when the sun itself is dying then returns to the present day, where he tells his story. A few days later, he sets off again, and never returns.
 
The story's vision of the future reflects Wells's [[Writer Onon Board|strong]] [[Useful Notes/Political Ideologies|socialist]] [[Author Tract|beliefs]]. It has been filmed twice, and there are many references to it in subsequent [[Time Travel]] stories.
 
The link in the first sentence will provide you with an online version of this classic (now in the [[Public Domain]] just about [[Offer Void in Nebraska|everywhere but Europe]]). You can also download the full text at [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/35 Project Gutenberg].
 
For the [[Choose Your Own Adventure]] series, see [[Time Machine Series (Literature)|Time Machine Series]].
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* [[Gentleman Adventurer]] (the main character)
* [[Giant Enemy Crab]]: There are lots of them in the farther future.
* [[I Want My Jetpack]]: Probably the [[Ur Example]] of the trope. Time Traveler arrives in the distant year 802701, expecting to see all those marvelous achievements of mankind, and what does he find? A [[Scavenger World|scavenger world]] inhabited by tiny childish people who think he fell from the sun.
* [[I'm Taking Her Home Withwith Me]]: In chapter 7, the Time Traveller plans to take Weena back to his home time.
* [[Kill the Cutie]]: Damn, {{spoiler|poor Weena...}}
* [[The Night That Never Ends]]: After the Earth stops rotating around its axis in the distant future, part of it becomes plunged in perpetual twilight.
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* [[Scavenger World]]
* [[Society Marches On]]: Back when the book was written, English society could be mostly divided into two classes, the aristocracy and working class. H. G. Wells assumed this model would remain for over 800 thousand years, finally separating mankind into two different species. However, the twentieth century brought radical changes in society and today even the middle class has three subclasses.
* [[Spell My Name Withwith a Blank]] (the one time the Time Traveller is addressed by name, this trope is used.)
* [[Spooky Silent Library]]: The book and all adaptations have included a scene involving an enormous abandoned library where all books have decayed to dust.
* [[The Reveal]]: {{spoiler|The Eloi aren't the rulers of the world - they're the cattle.}}
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* [[Time Travel]]
* [[Through the Eyes of Madness]]: Played with briefly, when the Time Traveller nears the end of his story. His thoughts grow more rambling and he starts to wonder aloud if he's somehow imagined the whole experience, or if he's only imagining being home right now. He insists upon seeing the time machine again for himself and, once he does, he comes back to his senses.
* [[To the Future Andand Beyond]]
* [[Unreliable Narrator]]: Various hypotheses about the nature of the Eloi as the story progresses, with the narrator admitting that even the [[The Reveal]] might be just another wrong theory. Also, due to the [[Framing Device]], the narrator's spellings of the few samples of Eloi language that readers get are likely poor reflections of the actual phonology, as neither the Time Traveller nor the outer story's narrator is a linguist by profession.
* [[Urban Segregation]] (the genesis of the Morlocks and the Eloi)
* [[Veganopia]] (Eloi eat the produce of an enormous garden, whose pests are at least locally extinct)
* [[Victorian London]] ([[The Present Day]] for the main character in the book and maintained as such in most adaptations; the 2002 film [[Cultural Translation|moved the setting to New York]], but kept the same time period)
* [[We Will Have Perfect Health in Thethe Future]]: Discussed extensively; the time traveler suspects that the people of the future, having conquered all disease, found no reason to develop any further technologically. Because of this, they degenerated into mindless beasts. This seems a valid theory at first, until he realizes with creeping horror that he ''also'' doesn't see any broken legs or other inevitable injuries. It's because {{spoiler|the underground humans prey on the weak at night}}.
* [[Weird Sun]]: travelling millions of years into the future, Time Traveler notices the sun growing larger and more red, as well as slowing down on its way across the horizon, until finally setting still forever. He concludes that the Earth must have ceased to spin around its axis.
* [[Writer Onon Board]]
 
 
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* [[The Great Politics Mess-Up]]:
{{quote| '''Talking ring:''' The war between East and West, which is now in its three hundred and twenty sixth year...}}
* [[Hey, It's That Voice!]]: Paul Frees has had multiple voice acting roles and is recognizable as the voice of the [[Apocalyptic Log|"talking rings"]]. You can also recognize Alan Young's legendary Scottish brogue in Filby (he's the voice of Scrooge [[McDuck]] in both Mickey's Christmas Carol, and [[Duck TalesDuckTales]].
* [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]]: Though the Time Traveler is referred to as "George", the machine's date indicator plate clearly reads "Manufactured by H. George Wells" meaning the Time Traveller's actual name is... [[HGH. G. Wells]].
* [[Named Byby the Adaptation]]: The Time Traveller is a addressed as "George", and his full name is visible on a plaque on the machine.
* [[Next Sunday AD]] (The Time Traveler witnesses a nuclear holocaust... ''in 1966'')
** This could even border on [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future]], with 1966 London full of skyscrapers and having shiny monorail, not to mention "tubeless TV" on window display.
* [[No New Fashions in Thethe Future]]: The Eloi women love their '50s hair. Weena, whose attitude and interests are akin to a child, even calls attention to it by asking George how the women of his time wear their hair.
* [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]]: Time Traveler goes forward in time at the speed of thousands of years every second, yet he can still see the wall behind him being built, block by block. Travelling this fast, he should barely be able to see any building ''last'', considering the lifespan of most structures mankind built.
* [[Stranded Withwith Edison]]: Implied by the ending. When Wells leaves after telling his friend Filby about his adventures, he takes three books from his vast library. Filby asks the housekeeper (and the audience), "If you were going to start civilization over again, which three books would you choose?"
* [[Training the Peaceful Villagers]]
* [[Weenalized]]/[[Promoted to Love Interest]] (Former [[Trope Namer]], by way of both the 2002 film and this one. In the novel, the time traveler forms a bond with an Eloi woman named Weena, who, like all Eloi, is a child-sized androgynous-looking creature mentally on the level of an eight-year old. However, the film turns Weena into a love interest, looking human.)
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* [[Bare Your Midriff]]: Mara's outfit.
* [[Brain Critical Mass]]: The far future villain has a massive brain that extends down his back. He uses it to control the beasts that prey on the humans.
* [[Spell My Name Withwith a "The"]]: The Uber-Morlock's real name is apparently Jeremy Morlock. Heh.
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: Hartdegen reaching out of the time bubble to catch his dropped pendant {{spoiler|and his hand rapidly aging while outside the bubble's protection}}.
* [[Disposable Woman]]: The time-traveler's fiancée; he spent ''years'' building the time machine to change history and save her from dying. Two failed attempts are depicted, and then later we're told he tried to save her ''twenty-seven times''. She really does have no further character development than being destined to die.
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* [[Lost in Imitation]]: This film seems to really be a rather loose [[The Remake|remake]] of the 1960 film, which itself was a somewhat loose adapation of Wells's novel, so you can imagine how little it resembles the book in any way.
* [[My Brain Is Big]]: The Uber-Morlock -- rather than have the usual huge head, his brain extended down the neck and lower back.
* [[Named Byby the Adaptation]]: Alexander Hartdegen, the time traveller.
* [[The Lost Lenore]]: The protagonist is now entirely motivated by the loss of his love, Emma.
* [[One-Scene Wonder]]: As with [[Star Trek]] [[First Contact]], the Morlocks were given a leader that had not existed previously, in order to explain what was going on those unfamiliar with the source material. Played [[Ham and Cheese|with a side of cheese]] by [[Jeremy Irons]].
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