Mike's Intro to The Time Machine (Everyman, 1993)

[David Mosley]

In 1993 Mike provided an Introduction to the Everyman edition of HG Wells' The Time Machine. I've managed to acquire a copy of the 1995 Centennial Edition, which includes Mike's Introduction (or a part thereof) in a larger essay called 'Wells and His Critics'.

I've uploaded a scan of the relevant sections to the Image Hive 'Introductions' album, but I would be grateful if anyone could confirm whether this is indeed the entire Introduction or only part of it.

(If the latter, I would be further grateful if anyone has a copy of the full text, which could be uploaded as well/instead of.)

[Governor of Rowe Island]

I can't help you re the completeness, David, but thanks for adding this to the IH. I've recently re-read 'The Time Machine', so it's quite timely.
One thing has just occured to me though: Which edition has the best text of the story?
Judging by Mike's comment on the fuller text found in the magazine version, there is probably a 'best' version of Wells' story.

[David Mosley]

Guv, this critique of the Everyman Wells' series by Patrick Parrinder may interest you:

Questionable Guides: The Everyman Editions of Wells's Science Fiction

The pertinent section about the text of The Time Machine says:

The texts of the Everyman Time Machine and Moreau are seriously defective. The so-called "Note on the Text" prefacing The Time Machine does not even specify which copy-text was used. However, it is based on the 1935 Everyman's Library edition which in turn derives from the 1924 Atlantic edition. David Lake has written approvingly of the 1935 Everyman, in which he could find "only one substantive misprint."3 Would that that were still true. In the new edition I have identified 34 unauthorized variants, an average of one for every three pages of text. Of these, 11 are substantive, and a further 4 are bad but obvious misprints which should have been picked up by any competent proofreader. Among the variants are "that the machine" for "that that machine" (10), "I said" for "said I" (29), "at last" for "at the last" (60), "in flight from amid" for "in flight amid" (74), and "At this I understood" for "At that I understood" (91). In addition, the text also perpetuates earlier errors, such as "patent readjustments" for "patient readjustments" (67), which can be traced back to the 1927 Complete Short Stories. "Over-world" (54 and 79 in the Everyman) appears in the Atlantic edition but was later amended to "Upper-world" for the sake of consistency.

Parrinder also says:

Michael Moorcock gives a lively, ebullient, not always reliable account of the fin-de-siècle literary scene and Wells's early struggles as a writer. His introduction, like the text of The Time Machine that follows it, is marred by misprints: the protagonist of "The Chronic Argonauts," for example, appears as "Dr. Nebogufek."

[JohnDavey]

Dear all,

I can't help you either, re. the most complete version of 'The Time Machine', but I can tell you that Mike has since disassociated himself from the unreliable Everyman edition because of the mess they made of his introduction... and not just misprints, but cuts and changes too.

The full text was later published in 'New Worlds' #221, as "The Time Of The Time Machine".

Best,


John.

[Governor of Rowe Island]

Thanks David. I shall investigate further.

[Michael Moorcock]

Hmmm. Well, I'm not going to quarrel with Parrinder, but I found one or two repeated errors in his notes (which I hope he's seen and corrected, assuming they were introduced by the publisher). I have editions of The Time Machine from The New Review serial, first English and US editions and so on to the definitive 1935 (I think) Random House edition, which was the last time Wells revised. I suggested this text for the Everyman but they said Parrinder had said (and I'm not suggesting they told the truth) that it didn't matter. I probably have one of the most extensive collections of magazines from the fin-de-siecle period, plus many first sources of various kinds, so while my picture of the period is at variance with his, I wouldn't say it was any more or less accurate... The introduction was very clumsily edited by the then editor of the Everyman paperback series while I was out of the country and the thread of my arguments lost. Unwilling to repeat myself on the subject, I did some original research into the most noticed books of 1895, when The Time Machine was published and, needless to say, Jude the Obscure, The Amazing Marriage and The Outcast of the Islands received little notice in the 'best of the year' roundups, while The Time Machine did somewhat better. Wells pushed The Amazing Marriage in two different publications. The whole text, for better or worse, was reprinted in New Worlds, as John says. It is extremely common for authors to be asked to contribute introductions to books and then, if the line they take is somehow at odds with the opinion of a publisher or expectations of an editor, for their words to be edited often into near-gibberish. Many of my friends have complained of this in recent years, though it didn't often happen in the early years of my career.