H.G. Wells is an English author best known as a sci-fi writer, though he was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, and even writing text books and rules for war games. The first great novel to imagine time travel, The Time Machine (1895) follows its scientist narrator on an incredible journey that takes him finally to Earth's last moments—and perhaps his own. The scientist who discovers how to transform himself in The Invisible Man (1897) will also discover, too late, that he has become unmoored from society and from his own sanity. The War of the Worlds (1898)—the seminal masterpiece of alien invasion adapted by Orson Welles for his notorious 1938 radio drama, and subsequently by several filmmakers—imagines a fierce race of Martians who devastate Earth and feed on their human victims while their voracious vegetation, the red weed, spreads over the ruined planet...

From the “father of science fiction,” H. G. Wells, comes two masterpieces of speculative storytelling: The Time Machine and The Invisible Man. The former propels the reader into the distant future, where a decaying Earth is being gradually swallowed by the Sun and where two strange species--the delicate Eloi and the fierce, subterranean Morlocks--inhabit an eerie dystopia. The latter offers the mesmerizing account of a bitter young scientist who discovers the chemical secret of invisibility, uses it on himself, and embarks on a terrifying descent into crime, obsession, and insanity. Both horrifying and thought-provoking, these cautionary tales are combined into an elegantly designed edition that features a new introduction. The Knickerbocker Classics bring together the works of classic authors from around the world in stunning gift editions to be collected and enjoyed. Complete and unabridged, these elegantly designed cloth-bound hardcovers feature a slipcase and ribbon marker, as well as a comprehensive introduction providing the reader with enlightening information on the author's life and works.

Together in one indispensable volume, The Time Machine and The Invisible Man are masterpieces of irony and imaginative vision from H. G. Wells, the father of science fiction. The Time Machine conveys the Time Traveller into the distant future and an extraordinary world. There, stranded on a slowly dying Earth, he discovers two bizarre races: the effete Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks—a haunting portrayal of Darwin’s evolutionary theory carried to a terrible conclusion. The Invisible Man is the fascinating tale of a brash young scientist who, experimenting on himself, becomes invisible and then criminally insane, trapped in the terror of his own creation. Convincing and unforgettably real, these two classics are consummate representations of the stories that defined science fiction—and inspired generations of readers and writers. With an Introduction by John Calvin Batchelor and an Afterword by Paul Youngquist

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells is a science fiction classic, which lends itself well to visualization. This version, illustrated by Yoann Laurent-Rouault, an illustrator master who graduated from the Beaux-Arts, and published in the international literary collection Memoria Books, is a reference on the time travel theme. Wells transports us in the year 802 701, in a society made up of the “Elois”, who live peacefully in a kind of big Garden of Eden, eating fruits and sleeping high up, while underground lives another species, also descending from men, the “Morlocks”, who do not stand the light anymore, living in the dark for too long now. At night, they return to the surface, going back up by the wells, in order to kidnap some Elois that they eat ; these last became livestock unknowingly. In The Time Machine, made into a movie several times, the last of them in 2002 by Simon Wells, the great-grandson of H. G. Wells, time is both a pretext to move the class struggle and warn... and also, in a way, a full character, who fascinates, arbitrates, transcends... The illustrations come to reinforce the time travel and provide a new experience to the reader.

Together in one indispensable volume, The Time Machine and The Invisible Man are masterpieces of irony and imaginative vision from H. G. Wells, the father of science fiction. The Time Machine conveys the Time Traveller into the distant future and an extraordinary world. There, stranded on a slowly dying Earth, he discovers two bizarre races: the effete Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks—a haunting portrayal of Darwin’s evolutionary theory carried to a terrible conclusion. The Invisible Man is the fascinating tale of a brash young scientist who, experimenting on himself, becomes invisible and then criminally insane, trapped in the terror of his own creation. Convincing and unforgettably real, these two classics are consummate representations of the stories that defined science fiction—and inspired generations of readers and writers. With an Introduction by John Calvin Batchelor and an Afterword by Paul Youngquist