The Time Machine Part VII

The Time Machine (1895) has been adapted for comic books a number of times. The most famous is Classics Illustrated #133 first published in 1956. A lesser known version is the second issue in the 1976 Marvel Classics Comic series. This is a first rate production - from the cover art by Gil Kane to the very effective story art by Alex Nino. The adaptation by Otto Binder is faithful to the original. Interesting that Kane based his version of the machine on the earlier Lou Cameron one.

The Time Machine Part VI

The Time Machine is a short novel, really a novelette. A 1995 Penguin edition, only 107mm x 136 mm (4 3/16 x 5 3/8 inches), is just 92 pages long. Along with its popularity, this made it an ideal novel for reprinting in the pulps - three times between 1927 and 1951. The first was Amazing Stories, May 1927. The text reprinted is the standard Heinemann published in 1895. The story illustrated on the cover is not The Time Machine. The next pulp reprints, Famous Fantastic Mysteries in August 1950 (vol. 11 no. 6) and Two Complete Science-Adventure Books Winter 1951 (vol. 1 no. 4), have The Time Machine on the cover.

The FFM cover is by Norman Saunders with the Time Traveller aggressively protecting an over sized, but nicely made-up, Weena from the Morlocks. The story is 44 pages long. The version reprinted is the uncommon first American. The TCS-AB version is the Heinemann and is 43 pages long.

The Time Machine Part V

On November 8, 1895, five-and-a-half months after the the English edition of The Time Machine was published, Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered X-rays. This was the start of an extraordinary decade of discovery in physics, ending with Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. In between radioactivity (1896), the electron (1897) and the solution to the black-body problem, (i.e.: quanta, 1900).

How appropriate that The Time Machine was published at the beginning of that period. But when did the story take place? The internal evidence, when Wells refers to a real world event, is early 1894. A well known Wells scholar proposes 1901 - the beginning of the new century. He suggests this ties in neatly with the year 802,701 when most of the story takes place, this year being 800,800 years after 1901. Then we come to the abysmal movie version released in 2002. In addition to the obvious changes to the original story, the movie story takes place in 1899. Why? Who knows. More disturbing is the J.M. Dent Everyman movie-tie-in edition referring to 1899 while, of course, reprinting the original.

New York : Ace, nd 16th printing

Ace back

London, Dent, 2002 2nd printing

Dent back

The Time Machine Part IV

A comment on the first post in this series leads to a further look at the 1931 Random House edition of The Time Machine.

Published in 1931 as a limited edition of 1200 for $12.50 (when hardcovers sold for $2.00), the Random House edition has a new preface by Wells. The AIGA web site gives the design details for the book. Lloyd Currey in his Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1979) says the limited edition was issued in unprinted tissue paper DJ and paper slipcase. There are also copies without the limitation statement on page [88]. My copy is the latter one. This also came with a slipcase but I don't know if it is different from the limited edition's slipcase.

A division of Random House, The Modern Library, published a trade paperback edition in 2002 that reproduces the 1931 edition.

Below is the 1931 edition's front cover, slipcase and the four colour plates plus the Modern Library edition.

The Time Machine Part III

There is a tiny Canadian connection to H.G. Wells's The Time Machine. Early in Chapter 1, the Time Traveller mentions a recent talk on the fourth dimension given by Simon Newcomb. Newcomb, who was born in Wallace, Nova Scotia in 1835, became, after moving to the US as a young man, one of the most respected scientists of his day.

The talk was given at the December 28, 1893 annual meeting of the New York Mathematical Society and was published in Nature 49 (February 1, 1894).

Here are a couple of mid century paperback editions of The Time Machine. The Airmont cover has the oddest version of the machine that I've seen. The Berkely edition's cover is by Richard Powers, one of the masters of SF illustration. The scene here, unlike most illustrations of the story, is of the Time Traveller's final trip to the far future:

"The darkness grew apace; a cold wind began to grow in freshening gusts from the east. And the showering white flakes in the air increased in number. From the edge of the sea came a ripple and whisper. Beyond these lifeless sounds the world was silent. Silent? It would be hard to convey the stillness of it. All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of our lives - all that was over. As the blackness thickened, the eddying flakes grew more abundant, dancing before my eyes; and the cold of the air more intense. At last, one by one, swiftly, one after the other, the white peaks of the distant hills vanished into darkness. The breeze rose to a moaning wind. I saw the black central shadow of the eclipse sweeping toward me. in another moment the pale stars alone were visible. All else was rayless obscurity. The sky was absolutely black.

A horror of this great darkness came on me. The cold, that smote to my marrow, and the pain I felt in breathing overcame me. I shivered, and a deadly nausea seized me. Then like a red hot bow in the sky appeared the edge of the sun. I got off the machine to recover myself. I felt giddy and incapable of facing the return journey. As I stood sick and confused I saw again the moving thing upon the shoal - there was no mistake now that it was a moving thing - against the red water of the sea. It was a round thing, the size of a football perhaps, or, it may be, bigger, and tentacles trailed down from it; it seemed black against the weltering blood-red water, and it was hopping fitfully about. Then I felt I was fainting. But a terrible dread of lying helpless in that remote and awful twilight sustained me while I clambered into the saddle."

Berkely 380 - 1957

Berkeley 380 back

Airmont CL44 - 1964

Airmont CL44 back

The Time Machine Part II

As noted in part I H.G. Wells's The Time Machine was first published in the US by Henry Holt & Co. A Library of Congress copyright listing in early May 1895 has given this edition bragging rights over the the first British edition published in late May by London's Heinemann. This is the famous  "H.S. Wells" edition. The book is part of Holt's small 16mo Buckram series. Smaller than a paperback, it sold for $.75. The top edge gilt with the other edges untrimmed.

When was the first Canadian edition published? So far the earliest edition I have found is, believe it or not, from Broadview Press in 2001. It is the best edition now in print. The text is 100 pages with 200 pages of introduction, notes and appendices. This edition uses the 1895 Heinemann version.

The Time Machine: An Invention Part I

H. G. Wells's The Time Machine: An Invention is one of my top five favourite novels. Aside from the iconic story the book has a complicated publishing history which adds to its allure. The history is on line and is well documented elsewhere so I'll discuss the highlights. Serialized in the UK in early 1895, the book was published in the US (where Wells's name is misspelled H.S. Wells) in early May 1895 and later in the month in the UK. The US version is significantly different from the UK and no one knows why. It is also much rarer. The UK edition is the version that is accepted as the "right" one. However Wells kept fiddling with the story in minor ways in the 1920s and 1930s as the book was reprinted. Which version of the UK story one reads in the hundreds of editions since published in often unknown.

One one of the many fascinating publishing details is that the UK edition was produced in two wraps versions as well as hardcover. As you might imagine the wraps variant is much rarer.

I can find no early Canadian editions of any interest so I'll discuss a few American in this post. I'll keep looking for an early Canadian edition.

The first paperback edition published in the US in the mass market era was the Armed Services Edition, one of 1322 titles published for American servicemen during WWII. In addition to its collectibility as part of this series this edition is almost unique in that reprints the first American edition. If you've read the book you'll be surprised how different this version is.

Armed Services Edition T-2

Armed Services Edition T-2 back

The next edition was published by Random House in 1931. In addition to its design features it is bibliographically interesting as the pentultimate version that Wells worked on. He also provided a preface. Below is the cover, title page and an example of the text.