The Time Machine

Wells, H. G. The Time Machine. New York: Henry Holt, 1895. London: William Heinemann, MDCCCXCV (sic). See Currey 524-25 for discussion of biblio. matters (which are complex and still controversial). Frequently rpt., including H. G. Wells: The Time Machine [and] War of the Worlds: A Critical Edition. Frank D. McConnell, ed. New York: Oxford UP, 1977.

Possibly the first influential work with an inhabited, mechanized underworld—contrasted with an apparently ideal green world on the surface. (The Underworld, traditionally, is the womb of the Great Mother; mechanizing the Underworld is a radical displacement of a central archetype.)