| Time Traveler | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Real Name |
Unknown |
|
First Appearance |
The New Review, vol. 12, no. 68 (Jan. 1895) |
|
Original Publisher |
William Heinemann |
|
Created by |
H. G. Wells |
Origin[]
The Time Traveler is, as his name suggests, a man who invented the world's first working Time Machine. His real name is unknown.
The Time Traveler is a British scientist and gentleman, living in Richmond, Surrey. His first time travel took him to the year 802,701, where he encountered the peaceful, small, elegant, childlike Eloi and the monstrous, subterranean Morlocks; he believed both races to be descendants of 19th century humanity, having evolved in two different directions due to the great divide between social classes in his time. In this distant future he also found a statue of a sphinx.
The Time Traveler encounters Weena in the year 802,701 A.D. He rescues her from drowning in a "shallow", while the other Eloi do nothing to help. The next day, she presents him a garland of flowers, which she has made especially for him. He takes her on his expedition and decides to take her to his own time, the Victorian Era, but Weena faints and is lost in a fire when he battles the Morlocks to retrieve his time machine. He returns to his own time with two strange white flowers, which Weena had put into his pocket.
After his return from the future, he told his adventures to his disbelieving visitors, producing as evidence two strange flowers he brought with him from the future. The next day he departed again for another time travel, promising to be back in half an hour, but he never returned.
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
- The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells (serialized 1895)
- “The Time‐Traveler” (poem), by Rosamund Marriott Watson (12 May 1898)
- The World of H. G. Wells, by Van Wyck Brooks (1915)