In 1895, H. G. Wells was underweight and suffering from respiratory illness; believing that he had only a short time to make his mark as a writer and in need of money, he assembled ideas that he had developed in magazine articles and crafted The Time Machine. In order to make it a profitable novel, he made it into a sensational adventure. He also made it thematically complex. The social satire is plain enough, but Wells also developed themes of beauty, the divided self, and, at bottom, good and evil. In a wellknown remark, author V. S. Pritchett declared, "The Time Machine . . . will take its place among the great stories of our language. Like all excellent works it has meanings within its meaning and no one who has read the story will forget.....
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