1894

“Well, read it.”

I did. “Dear Sir… blah blah blah… Please find below a communication from the Examiner blah blah… First ground of rejection, neither the machine described nor the method of using it appears to fit any of the classes of patentable inventions. Second ground of rejection: the contrivance appears to lack utility. To meet this rejection it will be necessary to present and successfully demonstrate a working model. Third ground of rejection: the invention is anticipated by prior publications, viz., Wells, H.G., Science Schools Journal (1888). In sum, the Applicant should not expect a grant of a patent on the alleged invention. Respectfully, for the Comptroller, blah blah, and so on.”

“They turned down your patent?”

“Yes.”

That didn’t satisfy her. “So why do you look so happy?”

“I didn’t really want to bother with it.” I pictured the Patent Office. At least now it had that big beautiful building all to itself. In this world, no Confederate Resident Office, no spittoons. The United States of America was whole and sound, and cotton was still pouring into Liverpool. I had a lot of history and geography to catch up on, and I’d probably make a few silly mistakes in the process. Right now, though, I was broke, and I had rent to pay and mouths to feed.

“What’s the other letter?” Jane asked.

I’d almost forgotten it. I opened it carefully and took out a folded paper. A smaller piece of paper escaped and fluttered to the floor. Jane pounced on it like a hawk.

“A cheque!” she cried. “A hundred pounds! From the New Review!” She kissed it. I didn’t blame her. “Henley?”[4] she asked.

“Yes. Listen to this. He wants me to rewrite the time travel articles as a novel. He’ll serialize it as The Time Traveler, starting in January next year. And that’s not all. He’s arranged for a book contract with Heinemann. They pay an advance of & 50, with a 15 percent royalty. Heinemann will call it The Time Machine.”

Jane summed it up. “We eat.”

And it was time for me to get busy.

12. Epilogue

So I’m sitting here, writing this in the same open window, under the same green paraffin lamp, and probably under the scrutiny of the same nocturnal insects who watched me finish the final revision of The Time Machine.[5] Which history of the Machine shall I send Henley? The one he already knows, of course. Who would believe the version where Albert and I changed the world?

[Ed. Note: The following fragment was found in the papers of the Albert mss. How (or whether) Wells had intended to incorporate it is not clear.]

The Year 1894

In this year Britain has a burst of creativity that could have come only from a nation with boundless optimism and a strong sense of honour. In this year Du Maurier came out with Trilby; Hope, The Prisoner of Zenda; Kipling, The Jungle Book; Shaw, Arms and the Man; Beardsley, drawings for Wilde’s Salome; and Ramsay and Raleigh discovered argon. We owe at least some of this to the prince and his ideals of education and social justice.

I had not intended that this turn into a eulogy for the prince, and certainly not as a recommendation for the monarchy. I remain a staunch republican. Yet I cannot resist a temptation to compare the British achievement of 1894 with that of the French. His innocence notwithstanding, in this year 1894 to save the “honour” of the French army, Captain Dreyfus was sent to Devils Island. Could this have happened in Britain? Under the immortal eye of the prince? Never!

4

Ed. Note: William Ernest Henley, 1849–1903, famous London editor and poet, known to American readers best for his great self-paean, Invictus.Ed. Note: In August 1894 Wells, “Jane” (Catherine Robbins), and her mother departed from Charing Cross Station by train for Tusculum Villa, 23 Eardley Road, 7 Oaks, Kent, for a two week vacation. The vacation was overdue. Mrs. Robbins was ill and Wells was exhausted for reasons never adequately explained before the discovery of this document. He spent those two weeks rewriting The Time Machine, following Henley’s suggestion to “cycle in on time to the end of the world.” (In the prior rewrite Wells had stopped with the Traveler’s escape from the Morlocks.) He wrote the last pages of the final revision at an open window at night, while down below the landlady loudly proclaimed the sinful morals of her new tenants to her neighbors. (Wells and Catherine were still unmarried.)

In June 1894 The Time Machine was published as a book in the form we know it today. Since 1888 it had been revised and/or rewritten six times and printed in various forms four times, with extensive revisions each time. As of its Centennial The Time Machine remains the most widely read of all Wells’s novels. Probably only the Bible has been translated in more foreign languages.

5

Ed. Note: William Ernest Henley, 1849–1903, famous London editor and poet, known to American readers best for his great self-paean, Invictus.