SOURCE: Vernier, Jean-Pierre. “The Time Machine and Its Content.” In H. G. Wells, “The Time Machine,” “The War of the Worlds”: A Critical Edition, edited by Frank D. McConnell, pp. 315-20. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

In the following essay, originally published in French in 1971, Vernier describes the variations of The Time Machine and discusses its universal appeal at the time of its publication.

The Time Machine has remained one of Wells's most popular books, and one of the most often reprinted. The circumstances of its publication are, in general, well enough known that here we need only recall them briefly. The Time Traveller appeared for the first time in the Science Schools Journal, in a story entitled “The Chronic Argonauts”; following are the principal transformations undergone by that original tale:¹

• A. “The Chronic Argonauts,” published in the Science Schools Journal, 1881.
• B. Two different versions of the same...