Wells, H.G.

8vo, first english edition, first issue, presentation copy inscribed by the author ("With the Author's Kindest Regards") on front free endpaper, 16 pages of advertisements at end, original tan-grey cloth (Currey's B1 binding), sphinx design and titles on upper cover and title on spine in purple, edges untrimmed, in a morocco-backed grey cloth slipcase with spine gilt in compartments, covers very lightly marked, spine slightly faded, offsetting from bookplate to front endpaper, otherwise an attractive copy

John Stuart Groves, morocco book-label on upper pastedown (his extensive collection of mostly American literature was dispersed in the 1930s); Maurice F. Neville (his sale, Sotheby's New York, 13 April 2004, lot 238)

Wells 4; Currey, pp.524-5

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

the first of wells's widely influential scientific romances, and his first public success.

This English edition was issued simultaneously in cloth and wrappers in May 1895, the same month as the American edition published by Holt. Priority has not been determined, although the American deposit copy was received at the Library of Congress three weeks before the British Library acquired its copy of the English edition.

The Time Machine, a primitive version of which was serialised as The Chronic Argonauts in 1888, evolved through six rewritings and various printings to reach its final form. Some parts of the story had appeared as a series of articles in The National Observer in 1894, and 'The Time Traveller's Story' appeared almost as it stands in this edition in The New Review (1894-5).

"...Will he [the Time Traveller] ever return?...He may even now...be wandering on some plesiosaurus-haunted Oolitic coral reef, or beside the lonely saline seas of the Triassic Age. Or did he go forward, into one of the nearer ages, in which men are still men, but with the riddles of our own time answered and its wearisome problems solved?...He, I know...thought but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind, and saw in the growing pile of civilization only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers in the end...But to me the future is still black and blank -- is a vast ignorance, lit at a few casual places by the memory of his story..." (Epilogue, pp.151-2).