Heinemann, 1895
First UK Edition, First Printing A handsome unrestored copy of this title. Preferred first English edition of H.G. Wells’ first, groundbreaking “scientific romance,” in original cloth.
Original decorated tan cloth, front and rear panels stamped in deep purple. First British edition, second cloth binding, and without publisher’s catalogue at rear, as issued –“issued with and without inserted publisher’s catalogue at rear” (Currey, 424). Oatmeal tan cloth binding measures 18.2 cm vertically, top edge untrimmed, fore edge rough cut, spine set in 12-point type. The book has sharp corners, vibrant cloth to the front and rear board but with some toning to the rear panel. The book has no edgewear. The internal pages are clean, crisp, bright and flat, with no foxing, no handling marks, no writing, no bent pages and no stains. A handsome copy in lovely clean condition. Please see the many detailed images.
In 1894 Wells “began writing what he called ‘single sitting stories’ using his special knowledge of science, culminating in the publication of his novella The Time Machine in 1895. It was an immediate success” (Gunn, From Gilgamesh to Wells, 337). Its earliest readers grasped its significance: as one contemporary review states, “So far as our knowledge goes [Wells] has produced that rarity which Solomon declared to be not merely rare but non-existent–a ‘new thing under the sun'” (Bergonzi, 41). Important not only for establishing Wells as a popular author but also for making a “crucial breakthrough in narrative technology, providing science fiction with one of its most significant facilitating devices” (Clute & Nicholls, 1227), “it is the most important foundation stone of British scientific romance and the science fiction genre in general” (Anatomy of Wonder II-1232). Indeed, “once it was published it modified and changed English and American fiction forever. Wells had produced a significant and seminal work. a masterful marriage of the fictive art and theoretical science” (Smith, 46, 50).
