SOURCE: Philmus, Robert M. “The Time Machine; Or, The Fourth Dimension as Prophecy.” PMLA 84, no. 3 (May 1969): 530-35.

In the following essay, Philmus analyzes Wells's own observations on The Time Machine and provides a stylistic examination of the novella.

The statements that H. G. Wells gave out in the twenties and thirties about his early “scientific romances” or “scientific fantasies,” as he alternately called them, are not sympathetic to the spirit of these works written before the turn of the century. In general, he makes them out to be slighter in substance or more tendentious in tone than the serious reader coming upon them now would find them. Nevertheless, Wells does not attempt wilfully to mislead or mystify his readers in later assessments of his early romances; and in fact his own criticism is sometimes actively helpful in understanding his fiction.

Of particular importance are his various observations about...