In this blog post, we will naturally explore the content, impressions, and core meanings of his works, focusing on “The Life and Works of H. G. Wells: From Time Travel to Cosmic Utopia.”
Life and Background
Herbert George Wells, known as a social critic ahead of his time and the “father of science fiction,” was born on September 21, 1866, in Bromley, Kent, England. Coming from a working-class background, he did not receive a proper formal education as a child. He once worked as an apprentice at a draper’s shop but quit after about two years because the work did not suit him. He later secured a position as a student teacher in Midhurst, which gave him the opportunity to pursue higher education, and in 1884, at the age of eighteen, he received a scholarship to attend the London School of Science (the predecessor of the Faculty of Science at the University of London).
There, he met the renowned biologist T. H. Huxley, an encounter that marked a turning point in his life. Huxley was a close colleague of Charles Darwin and the grandfather of Aldous Huxley; he was a proponent of agnosticism in philosophy and religion and a fervent supporter of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Wells studied science under Huxley for three years, acquiring the logical consistency, scientific reasoning, and evolutionary and prophetic intellectual thinking that would form the foundation of his literature and philosophy.
After graduating from school, Wells worked briefly as a science teacher but soon turned his attention to writing, beginning to pen short stories and embarking in earnest on a career as an author. Finally, in 1895, he published ‘The Time Machine’, which brought him great fame. ‘The Time Machine’ depicted a bleak future for humanity while simultaneously presenting, for the first time, the possibility of time travel through scientific means, thereby expanding the horizons of thought—which had been fixed in the present—to encompass the past and the future.
Major Works and Worldview
Over the next four years, Wells published works such as ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’ (1896), ‘The Invisible Man’ (1897), and ‘The War of the Worlds’ (1898), vividly depicting a bleak vision of modern civilization. In particular, ‘The War of the Worlds’, published on the eve of the turn of the century, exposed the outdated traditions of the Victorian era and the blind faith in human progress, while criticizing British imperialism and the complacency of those buried in their daily routines, emphasizing the need to “break free from the shackles of the past.” Wells stated the following in a lecture in 1902:
“We must realize the creative effort of our own actions without being bound by the constraints of the past. We must free ourselves from the shackles of the past.”
While advancing this thesis, Wells expanded his imagination from Earth into the distant cosmos. Even as he painted a bleak, fin-de-siècle vision of catastrophe, he dreamed of new construction amidst destruction; and as the 20th century dawned, he expressed an optimistic outlook upon witnessing the new values and world order emerging after the demise of the Victorian era’s outdated traditional values. The scientific knowledge and evolutionary and prophetic thinking reflected in his works published in the late 19th century, beginning with ‘The Time Machine’, manifested as an optimistic outlook aimed at creating an ideal society and a new worldview.
Based on these ideas, Wells foresaw and analyzed the future of humanity as it entered the new century in ‘Anticipations’ (1901), expounding on his ideas for social reform. Through his interactions with the Fabian Society and utopian socialists, he developed a vision for an ideal world as a single global state. The Fabian Society, founded in London in 1884, was led by figures such as Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, and Beatrice Webb, and aimed for social transformation through gradual reform.
However, Wells’ boundless imagination and idealism stood in stark contrast to the Fabian Society’s moderate gradualism. Eventually, he broke away from the Fabian Society’s moderate approach and, through works such as ‘A Modern Utopia’ (1905), ‘Men Like Gods’ (1923), and ‘The Shape of Things to Come’ (1933), expanded his vision of an ideal society beyond Earth to a cosmic scale, presenting a more macro-level and innovative utopian philosophy. Furthermore, through enlightening works such as ‘The Science of Life’ (1930) and ‘The Work, Wealth, and Happiness of Mankind’ (1932), he advocated for social reform and progress aimed at a single world government.
However, after witnessing the horrors of World War II, he began to feel skeptical of the optimistic outlook he had long held. He began to present a gradually darker vision in ‘The Fate of Homo Sapiens’ (1939), and in his final work, ‘Mind at the End of Its Tether’ (1945), he rejected the optimistic worldview he had held for so many years. He passed away the following year, in 1946, at the age of eighty.
Through ‘The Time Machine’, Wells expanded the horizons of our imagination into the distant future and the past. The appeal of this novel lies in its presentation of the possibility of time travel through the scientific means of a machine. Although works dealing with time travel existed before Wells—such as Washington Irving’s ‘Rip Van Winkle’ (1819), Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ (1843), and Edward Bellamy’s ‘Looking Backward’ (1888), and Mark Twain’s ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’ (1889), there were works dealing with time travel before Wells, but they were generally limited to waking up after a long sleep or experiences within a dream. By introducing a concrete mechanical device—the Time Machine—Wells made it possible to imagine journeys to the distant future, such as the year 802,701, or to the distant past, such as the Jurassic era implied in the epilogue.
In the novel, the time traveler gathers a group of people representing the Victorian middle class—doctors, psychologists, journalists—and recounts his experiences of time travel. However, to those steeped in Victorian thinking, the stories he tells seem nothing more than preposterous and utterly unbelievable. Through these characters, Wells coldly exposes blind faith in progress, an unequal class society, and a materialistic civilization that has lost its morality, warning of humanity’s impending doom through the time traveler’s accounts.
The world of the year 802,701, where the time traveler arrives, appears at first glance to be a garden or a Garden of Eden, with a mild climate and a serene atmosphere. The beautiful Eloi people there seem like Adam and Eve, but their society is a degenerate one devoid of progress or change, and the Eloi are listless beings who have lost their vitality and intellectual capacity. The ruling class, for whom labor became unnecessary in their comfortable lives, and the working class, who were responsible for production, evolved into the Eloi and the Molochs (underground monsters), respectively—a development that can be interpreted as the result of 19th-century class division and the structure of capitalism over the course of many years.
The time traveler feels compassion for the Eloi but does not take sides. The fate of the Eloi, who are sacrificed to the Morlocks, is interpreted as a path brought about by the ruling class of 19th-century society, which abused the working class while enjoying a life of comfort; the working class had transformed into hideous monsters with almost no trace of humanity remaining. Ultimately, through this vision of the distant future, Wells criticized 19th-century British society—where industrialization and class division were becoming pronounced—and modern civilization.
“As I gazed at the stars, my worries and all the important issues of life on Earth suddenly seemed trivial. I reflected on the inevitable motion of the stars, moving slowly from an immeasurably distant past into the future. I also pondered the cycle of the Earth’s massive precession. During the time I spent traveling through time, this quiet rotational movement occurred only 40 times. And during those few rotations, all human activity and traditions, complex organizations, nations, languages, literature, aspirations, and even the memory of humanity as I knew it had completely vanished.”
In this way, Wells’ worldview—which envisions the future on a macroscopic scale and extends the imagination into the cosmos—demonstrates that it was already firmly established as philosophical contemplation long before he pondered the “fantasy of humanity reaching out into space” in the conclusion of ‘The War of the Worlds’ or the cosmic utopia featuring interstellar exchange depicted in his various works published in the 20th century.
The Time Traveler travels even further into the future, 30 million years ahead, and witnesses Earth as a dying planet. While this serves as a grim warning to humanity, Wells does not dwell on mere pessimism; instead, he evokes a sense of awe in the face of the vast universe. Furthermore, even amidst his pessimism regarding humanity, he hints at a glimmer of hope. The time traveler rescues a young girl named Wina from drowning, and they develop a mutual human affection. Through the flower she gives him, he demonstrates that human gratitude and love will endure forever, even after humanity’s intellect and strength have vanished.
“······ “Beside me lie two strange white flowers, and they comfort me. Though they have already withered, turned brown, and droop as if about to crumble, this very sight proves that even if human intellect and strength vanish, the spirit of gratitude and mutual love will live on forever in the hearts of mankind.”
Traveling through the imaginary world depicted by Wells aboard ‘The Time Machine’ will be a truly delightful experience.
