The Time Machine Deleted Text: "The Grey Man"

In which the author gives in to editorial demands and then fixes it when publishing it on his own, and where we see "the ultimate degeneracy of man."



And here is the promised "bonus feature" for The Time Machine. Wells wrote this at his editor's request but took it back out first chance he got, and it really was rather the right choice, in my opinion. It makes for a weird flow to the chapter to have the Time Traveler's escape take him to the far distant future, and then the even farther distant future. But, I like letting you have the option. To listen properly, stop the main recording at about 9:30, then pick it back up after you're done with "The Grey Man" here at 12:05, and continue on from there.

No notes on this one, but a couple of bonus covers for you, from non-English language editions

This first one hails from Germany in 1951, and is interesting to me as it appears to depict the giant centipede-like creature that appears in "The Grey Man," but not in the main text. I wonder if translated version tend to include that more than English-language versions? Or maybe it's not in this text either, and it's just another confusing choice on the part of the artist.

Like this one here, from a 1983 Turkish edition. The Morlocks are carrying off an unconscious Time Traveler, who appears to be wearing a futurey jumpsuit of some sort. Looks pretty cool! But wasn't in the novel.

All right, that's it for our bonus feature! Next up: a new short story.


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Wikisource. No reading ahead, though!