The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 Related to: The Time Machine
 from antiquity to 2017

The story and its importance were noted in the first issue of Tomorrow.

   “The Chronic Argonauts”
by H.G. Wells
First publication: The Science School Journal, 1888

Wells abandoned this early version of the story after three installments. He may not have liked it, but it’s a fun historical read—and the first mention that I’ve seen of time as the fourth dimension.

 Those who were there say that they saw Dr. Nebogipfel, standing in the toneless electric glare, on a peculiar erection of brass and ebony and ivory; and that he seemed to be smiling at them, half pityingly and half scornfully, as it is said martyrs are wont to smile. 


The essays were reprinted in this 1975 scholarly work edited by Robert Philmus and David Y. Hughes.

   The National Observer Essays
by H.G. Wells (as by Anonymous)
First story: 17 Mar 1894 - 23 Jun 1894

After his first fictional foray into time travel (“The Chronic Argonauts”), Wells anonymously published a series of seven fictionalized essays in The National Observer that contained the genesis of what was to come.
  1. Time Travelling: Possibility or Paradox? (17 Mar 1894)  
  2. The Time Machine (24 Mar 1894)  
  3. A.D. 12,203: A Glimpse of the Future (31 Mar 1894)  
  4. The Refinement of Humanity: A.D. 12,203 (21 Apr 1894)  
  5. The Sunset of Mankind (28 Apr 1894)  
  6. In the Underworld (19 May 1894)  
  7. The Time-Traveller Returns (23 Jun 1894)  

 ‘Possibly not,’ said the Philosophical Inventor. ‘But now you begin to see the object of my investigations into the geometry of four dimensions. I have a vague inkling of a machine—’ 




   The Time Machine
aka The Time Machine: An Invention
by H.G. Wells
First publication: New Review, Jan-May 1895



In which the Traveller first introduces us to his machine.

 I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both hands, and went off with a thud. 

H.G. Wells, Master Traveller

In 1919, my Grandpa Main cited H.G. Wells as the inaugural recipient of the Master Traveller Citation recognizing innovative writers for their contributions to time travel.


Lawerence Lek’s vision of Jarry’s machine

   “Commentaire pour servir à la construction pratique de la machine à explorer le temps”
English title: How to Construct a Time Machine (translated from French)
by Alfred Jarry (as by Dr. Faustroll)
First publication: Mercure de France, Feb 1899

Inspired by Wells, Jarry’s fictional Dr. Faustroll tells exactly what’s needed to build a time machine of your very own.

 Space and Time are commensurable. To explore the universe by seeking knowledge of points in Space can be accomplished only through Time; and in order to measure Time quantita tively, we refer to Space intervals on the dial of a chronometer. Space and Time, being of the same nature, may be conceived of as different physical states of the same substance, or as differ ent modes of motion. 


from the Hevelin Collection at the University of Iowa

   “The Final Men”
by H.G. Wells
First separate publication: Mar 1940 by Futurian Robert W. Lowndes

The first complete, published version of The Time Machine appeared as a five-part serial in the January through May 1895 issues of New Review, edited by William Ernest Henley. In the introduction to the 1924 edition, Wells wrote about the back-and-forth between himself and Henley, saying that “There was a slight struggle between the writer and W.E. Henley who wanted, he said, to put a little ‘writing’ into the tale.”

One piece of that writing was a short episode after the traveller leaves the Eloi and the Morlocks, just before visiting the red sun and the end of the world. This episode was deleted from both the American (Holt text) and the British (Heinemann text) published book editions of the novel, but it did appear as a 7-page mimeographed and stapled publication from American fan and Futurian Robert W. Lowndes in 1940, and it appeared in a number of other places, sometimes called “The Grey Man” and once called “The Missing Pages.”

 No doubt, too, the rain and snow had long since washed out the Morlock tunnels. A nipping breeze stung my hands and face. So far as I could see there were neither hills, nor trees, nor rivers: only an uneven stretch of cheerless plateau. 




   Favorite Story
adapted by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
First time travel: 26 Jun 1946

Each week, a different personality would choose a favorite story to be dramatized on radio station KFI’s, Los Angeles, Favorite Story program hosted and narrated by actor True Boardman. They broadcast at least three time-travel tales, all adapted by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. In fact, the first time travel was also KFI’s first episode, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, selected by actor Ed Gardner. Another episode was bandleader Kay Kyser’s favorite, The Time Machine, which was the second radio script for the Wells classic, significantly abridged but more faithful than the 1948 Escape radio production.

More or less concurrently, the broadcasts were repackaged nationally for NBC radio by Ziv Syndication with Ronald Colman as host; there were also some new NBC episodes (not adapted by Lawrence and Lee) including A Christmas Carol, which as everyone knows has no real time travel. The KFI dates below are taken from ocrsite.com; the NBC dates (which ocrsite says were aired differently across the country) are from audio-classics.com. The selector for each story is also given in the list below.
  1. Connecticut Yankee (26 Jun 46 KFI / 23 Jul 46 NBC) Ed Gardner
  2. The Time Machine (30 Nov 48 KFI / 21 Sep 48 NBC) Kay Kyser
  3. Enoch Soames (1 Mar 49 KFI / 7 Dec 48 NBC) Donald Ogden Steward
  4. A Christmas Carol (24 Dec 1949 NBC) Everyone!

 I ask you to imagine, gentlemen, a cube—a square box, let us say—which has only those three dimensions: length, breadth, and thickness. . . . Would not such a cube also require another dimension? 

—The Time Machine


Escape graphic from
Old Radio World

   Escape’s The Time Machine
aka Radio Theatre Group’s The Time Machine
adapted by Irving Ravetch
First airing: Escape radio program on CBS, 9 May 1948

In the first of many audio adaptations of Wells’s classic story, with Dudley (the inventor) takes his friend Fowler along for the ride so that he’ll have someone to talk with about the Eloi and the Morlocks. The script has been restaged multiple times.
  1. 9 May 1948 CBS’s Escape Radio
  2. 22 Oct 1950 CBS’s Escape Radio
  3. 27 Oct 1950 CBS’s Escape Radio
  4. 2005 with Filby instead of Fowler Radio Theatre Group
  5. 23 Dec 2007 Radio Theatre Group

 On this machine, a man can go whereever he likes in time. By working these levers, a man can choose his century, his year, his very day. 


the traveller, played by Russell Napier, meets the Eloi

   BBC’s The Time Machine
adapted by Robert Barr
First episode: 25 Jan 1949

The first tv broadcast of The Time Machine, a litle less than an hour, came live from the BBC’s Studio A at Alexandra Palace on 25 Jan 1949 with a second revised broadcast on 21 Feb 1949.

Seeing as how there are no recordings of the broadcast, I wish I had my own time machine so I could send my Betamax® back to 1949.

 In the first showing, after a brief interval in which the hands of the wall-clock recorded the passing of many hours, the lights began to dip and rise to indicate the passage of the days, and as this effect speeded up the walls of the room gradually dissolved. In the second performance this was cut out, killing the impression of fast-moving time. But, outside, the sun moves ever more swiftly across the sky until it is a continuous band of light, rising and falling to indicate the equinoxes, and throwing into vivid relief the changing shapes of successions of buildings which become more startlingly futuristic as the Traveller flashes through the ages. 

—Thomas Sheridan in Fantasy Review, Apr/May 1949


Classics Illustrated 133

Pendulum Press (1971)

   Classics Illustrated’s The Time Machine
adapted by Lou Cameron (art), Lorenz Graham (story) and George Wilson (cover)
First publication: Classics Illustrated 133, Jul 1956

This first comic book adaptation appeared in the month of my birth. Of course, as a self-respecting child of the ’50s and ’60s, I was never seen reading Classics Illustrated in public. Fortuntately, adults everywhere can now read the classic comic online.

A black and white version was reprinted in 1971 by Pendulum Press as a precursor to their original Pedulum Classics series.

 Then I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both hands and went off into time. 




   Dell’s The Time Machine
adapted by Alex Toth
First publication: Mar 1960

The second comic book adaption was drawn by the talented storyteller and artist Alex Toth who closely followed the movie script in Dell’s Four Color 1085. Online sources indicate that this was March of 1960, though that would be several months before the movie.

A black and white reprint appeared in the 2005 Alex Toth Reader (Volume 2).

 The year is 1900. The place is London, England, at an imposing mansion overlooking the river Thames. Impatient dinner guests sit in the library, awaiting an overdue host . . . 




   George Pal’s The Time Machine
adapted by David Duncan (George Pal, director)
First release: 17 Aug 1960

The time traveller now has a name—H. George Wells (played by Rod Taylor)—and Weena has the beautiful face of Yvette Mimieux.

 When I speak of time, I’m speaking of the fourth dimension. 


Pendulum Classics (1973)

Marvel Classics 2 (1976)

Academic Industries (1984)

   Pendulum Classics’ The Time Machine
aka Marvel Classics Comics 2
adapted by Otto Binder and Alex Niño
First publication: Jun 1973

There’s a papal dispensation (straight from Clifford Simak) that allows me to list all comic book adaptations of The Time Machine, even if they appeared after 1969. This Alex Niño version was printed as a small black and white graphic novel at least twice (Pendulum Press B&W 1973 and Academic Industries Pocket Classics 1984,). I haven’t seen it directly, but I recently found out that it was colored and printed as the second issue of the Marvel Classics series (cover by Gil Kane), which I first read in Pullman in early 1976. The storyline follows the 1960 movie closely.

 As a trial, I’ll just pull the future lever a short ways. 




   The Rook
by Bill DuBay
First publication: Eerie 82, Mar 1977

As you know, post-1969 comic books are not normally permitted on the list, but seeing as how Restin Dane, aka The Rook, is the great, great grandson of Wells’s original traveler (not to mention that the Rook and his Time Castle rescued the traveler at the Alamo in his debut “castling” adventure), how can I not make an exception?

 Mister . . . I don’t know who you are, where you came from, or where you got them fancy guns . . . but I want t’thank God and San Houston f’r sendin’ ya! My name’s Crockett . . . and before you got here, I thought fro sure I’d wake up tomorrow shakin’ hands with th’ devil! 




   “Nebogipfel at the End of Time”
by Richard Lupoff
First publication: Heavy Metal, Sep 1978

The end of time is as much of a magnet for time travelers as Hitler’s birth, although for a different reason.

 For what seemed like hour upon hour they arrived. Some by strange, grotesque vehicles. Some by spectacularly announced projection. Some by chronion gas, or drugs, or spiritual exercise, or by sheer mental power. Some involuntarily. Some unknowingly. At one point not far inland from the beach, across the first row of dim, ugly dunes, there suddenly appeared an entire city. 




   Classics Illustrated’s The Time Machine
adapted by Wallace C. Bennett
First aired: 5 Nov 1978 (made-for-tv)

For me, the updated framing took this made-for-tv movie too far away from the original novel, and the production values were so low that it never got much airing, even if we do get looks at pilgrim witch hunts, the old west, and a dreamy Weena who speaks English.

 In tonight’s Classics Illustrated presentation, a young scientist hurtles the barrier of time and finds himself locked in a struggle to prevent the destruction Earth in the world of the future—an exciting new version of H.G. Wells’s masterpiece, The Time Machine. 


1983 Baronet/Playmore edition

four later editions

   Illustrated Classics Edition:
The Time Machine
aka Great Illustrated Classics: The Time Machine
adapted by Shirley Bogart (story) and Brendan Lynch (art)
First publication: 1983

If you are a misguided completist, you may find yourself drawn to reading the new Chapter 13 in Bogart’s adaptation in which the traveller finds himself in an authoritarian 22nd century populated by 1950s cape-wearing, B-movie characters. Do so if you must, but try to resist the urge to read any of the rest of Bogart’s adaptation for pre-teens, and whatever else you do, don’t let the book fall into the hands of your eight-to-twelve-year-old.

The first edition was released in 1983, possibly in multiple formats, although I’ve never spotted what I believe was the first edition published by Waldman Publishing in 1983; multiple editions, including a Chinese translation, have appeared since.

 A figure in a silver cape and tights, with gloves to match, was saying, “That’s enough Apathy-Gas, Kolar. There’s only one passenger.’ 

—from the new Chapter 13: The Golden Age of Science




   Eternity Comics’ The Time Machine
adapted by Bill Spangler and John Ross
First publication: Apr 1990

This three-issue black-and-white adaptation has some creative twists such as when it occurs to the traveller how to use the machine to destroy the Morlocks. In 1991, the three issues were issued as a single graphic novel in trade paperback size.

 I was elated! I gripped the starting lever with both hands and went off with a thud. 




   Pinky and the Brain
created by Tom Ruegger and Steven Spielberg
First time travel: 6 Oct 1993

In their quest for world domination, the pair of gene-spliced lab mice traveled through time multiple times, both in their role as an Animaniacs guest feature and in their own series. Their jaunts include a visit to H.G. Wells and his time machine.

As with the Warners in other Animaniacs episodes, it’s not always clear whether Pinky and the Brain are traveling through time or merely acting out a drama set in a different time period. Such is life within four walls.
  1. Pavlov’s Mice, Animaniacs (6 Oct 1993)
  2. When Mice Ruled the Earth (H.G. Wells), Animaniacs (23 Oct 1993)
  3. Puppet Rulers, Animaniacs (12 Nov 1993)
  4. Don’t Tread on Us, Animaniacs (11 Nov 1995)
  5. Brain of the Future, Pinky and the Brain 8 Feb 1997)

 Greetings from a post-apocalyptic future. We have traveled back through time to bring you the answer to all of your problems. We are your future selves. 

——Brain of the Future




   Boys’ Life’s The Time Machine
adapted by Seymour Reit and Ernie Colon
First publication: Boys’ Life, Jun 1994

Nearly a century after the original publication of Wells’s tale, author Seymour Reit and artist Ernie Colon faithfully the comic book version up to date. The art was enjoyable, but to me, the traveller’s connection with Weena is downplayed in exchange for werewolfish Morlocks.

 After much study I’ve discovered that we can travel through time just as we travel through space . . . 




   Wendy’s 3D Color Classics’
The Time Machine
adapted by Neal Adams
First publication: third issue of 1995, Summer 1995

My strongest memory of Neal Adams comes from his artwork and plotting for the final eleven issues of the original X-Men. By that time, I felt that Marvel was in decline, but The Strangest Teens of All! still had my attention even if they didn’t yet have time travel. Much later, Adams adapted Wells’s famous tale in a 3D mini-comic giveaway for Wendy’s kids’ meals in a style that’s remniscent of his early 1970s work on Tower of Shadows.

In addition to the wonderful Neal Adams art, I’m also intrigued by the ChromaDepth® 3D glasses in which different wavelengths are shifted left or right a differing amount in the two eyepieces to create a 3D effect. If I understand it right, this means that Adams could draw the comic normally, and the 3D effect is added in the coloring process.

 This exciting comic can be read as is or with the new type of 3-D glasses provided. Look through the lens and you’ll see full color pictures turn into dazzling 3-D right before your eyes! 




   Wishbone
created by Peter Orton and Ellia Den
First time travel: 7 Nov 1995

Wishbone, our favorite imaginative dog, is an different literary adventurer during every episode, including one scarey 1995 tale (“Bark to the Future”) where he became the traveller. The kids loved this show, especially Hannah (and me).

 This is the problem with time. I’m hungry now, but snack time is later. Why can’t later be now? 




   Alien Voices Presents:
The Time Machine
adapted by Nat Sagaloff
First publication: two casettes, 1 Apr 1997

Tim had several of the Alien Voices dramatizations which featured the voices of Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and John de Lancie (Q) in classics such as Wells’s The Time Machine. The traveller, called John, was voiced by Nimoy.

 The Traveller: What we call civilization is little more than the history of war interrupted by uncertain moments of peace. Surely mankind aspires to something greater than that.
Filby: Yes, but what does this have to do with geometry, John?’
The Traveller: Everything, Filby, everything.  




   “The Truth about Weena”
by David J. Lake
First publication: Dreaming Down-Under, Sep 1998

David Lake is a noted scholar on Wells and author of Darwin and Doom: H.G. Wells and the Time Machine wherein he notes that Wells knew of the paradoxes involved in time travel, but didn’t want to address them in what he saw as a serious story about social trends. So, Lake says, his own Weena story is a shot at showing “what really happens in backward time travel,” which in this case is a model where backward time travel causes the universe to split. Lake handles the idea consistently, although for me, Lake’s afterward to the story fails to fully acknowledge the history of the split-universe idea, and the afterward does not give sufficient credit to single timeline alternatives.

On the other hand, I love stories that tell us what truly happened in another well-known story, and Lake handles that well, telling us in the voice of the original narrator about what truly happened to the Traveller (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) after he first returned to 1891 and subsequently set out to rescue Weena.

 Well, in its hitherto published form it was partly fiction, because at the time—1895—I could not write the full truth. The full truth was even more fantastic than the fiction—too fantastic, surely, to be believed; or if believed, too disturbing to received notions of Time. And besides, there were living people to protect: in particular, one young person who was very dear to us. 




   “What Weena Knew”
by James Van Pelt
First publication: Analog, Apr 2001

James Van Pelt kindly had coffee with me and signed a baseball for me at a Denver science fiction convention—oh, and he wrote (among other things) this fine story of Weena from the moment that H.G. Wells’s time traveller rescued her from the river.

I met the prolific and kind James Van Pelt at a convention in Denver, where we talked about one of his students who later came to Boulder to study computer science. I had misinterpreted a biography of Van Pelt in Analog as if it were an obituary, so I was happy to see the outstanding writer alive and willing to sign a baseball that I presented to him.

 Then a vice clamped her upper arm. A surge. A tremendous force, and she was clear of the stream. Air! There was air to breathe, but all she could do was cough. She was being carried. Her cheek rested on skin. Hough arms wrapped her close until they were on the bank. Gently, her rescuer put her down. Rock warmed her back; her hands lay flat in the heat, her head dropped onto the warmth. Against the sky stood a figure stragely shaped. Weena’s vision swirled—she could barely focus—but before she passed out, she saw in wonder, he was a giant. 


Before publishing a sequel to The Time Machine, Bricker also had a War of the Worlds sequel in this 2010 anthology.

   “Love and Glass”
by Michael Scott Bricker
First publication: Bones of the World, Sep 2001

Stranded at the end of the world, Wells’s time traveller has only one companion, a Morlock descendant whom the traveller dubs George, until others appear, including the predator called The Queen of Hearts.

 The Time Traveller asked him whether he was the last of his kind, George touched his shoulder, and within that look passed understanding. 




   DC’s The Time Machine
adapted by John Logan and Mike Collins
First publication: Mar 2002

Nicely done, giveaway comic with a 10-page teaser for the movie on slick paper.

 Will Mara be rescued? Will Alexander recover the time machine? Will he ever prevent Emma’s death and return to 1903? For the answers, see “The Time Machine”—opening March 8—only in theaters! 




   Simon Wells’s The Time Machine
adapted by John Logan (Simon Wells, director)
First release: 8 Mar 2002

This version (definitely not your grandfather’s time machine) has imaginative settings, but for me, the refactored plot was all dramatic music and no substance.

 You built your time machine because of Emma’s death. If she had lived, it would never have existed. So how could you use your machine to go back in time and save her? You are the inescapable result of your tragedy, just as I am the inescapable result of you. You have your answer. Now go. 


1st edition

2nd edition

3rd edition

   Graphic Classics: H.G. Wells
by Nicola Cuti, Antonella Caputo, Seth Frail and Craig Wilson
First publication: Graphic Classics 3 (1st Edition), Aug 2002

Eureka publishers have released a series of Graphic Classics trade paperbacks, each issue of which collects together comic book versions of stories, usually from a single classic author such as Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, H.P. Lovecraft, Jack London, and more. And, yes, the series includes an H.G. Wells issue (#3) which has undergone three editions, each of which has presented new black and white Time Machine material.

My favorite is the Wilson version (3rd edition), which has a steampunkish Eerie Comics feel and an extended stand-alone version with ten additional pages. My
  1. 1st edition (Aug 2002) A Time Machine Portfolio by Nicola Cuti
  2. 2nd edition (Apr 2005) The Time Machine by Antonella Caputo and Seth Frail
  3. Stand-alone (Jun 2013) The Time Machine by Caputo and Craig Wilson
  4. 3rd edition (Feb 2014) The Time Machine by Caputo and Craig Wilson

 I cannot help but wonder. Will he return? It may be he was swept back into the past. Or did he go forward into one of the nearer ages, when men are still men, but with the wearisome problems of our own age solved? I may never know. 

—from Caputo’s adaptation




   Magic Wagon’s The Time Machine
aka Graphic Classics The Time Machine (Graphics Planet)
adapted by Joeming Dunn and Ben Dunn
First publication: 1 Jul 2007

The Dunns present a 26-page comic book adaptation of the classic with large, block-colored panels and a blonde Weena with an anime look.

 That was three years ago. I wait every day for the return of the time traveler. 




   Campfire’s The Time Machine
adapted by Lewis Helfand and Rajesh Nagalukonda
First publication: 2008

Campfire Graphic Novels, based in New Delhi, is producing an adventurous series of long graphic adaptations of classic novels with vivid colors and striking artwork. Nagalukonda’s work on “The Time Machine” jumps out at you with an exagerated perspective and an original interpretation of the Eloi and the Morlocks.

 We did not know the man standing before us, but he spoke with much excitement and passion. Over time, we came to know him as the Time Traveler. 




   Time Machine Diorama
sculpted by Joe Laudati
First released: Jan 2010

Who doesn’t want their very own Time Machine diorama complete with Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux, a Morlock (standing), and another Morlock (lying in repose)?

 Above average model skills recommended. 1:8 scale. 


from peterclines.com

   “The End of the Experiment”
by Peter Clines
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

In the twenty-first century, on the very spot in London where Wells’s traveller first had his dinner party, physics student Jon has a similar party with his own friends and his own tiny model of a time machine.

 At the heart of it was a small seat carved from wood, almost a saddle, and before it was a console, barely two inches across, decorated with levers of what looked like glass and bone. 


The story also appeared in this 2013 Onspaugh collection.

   “Time’s Cruel Geometry”
by Mark Onspaugh
First publication: Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, Sep 2010

We learn what really happened after the Time Traveller left his 1895 London house for the final time, and along the way we also learn the answer to what happens should he meet himself.

 In those trials he saw her die more than a dozen times, and it nearly drove him mad. If he was not sure he could rescue her, he might have set the controls for the far distant future when the sun would engulf the Earth. 




   Celestial Elf’s The Time Traveller
by Celestial Elf
First publication: 26 Sep 2010

Using the Four Winds Sims animation packet and pieces of the Radio Theatre Group’s audio play of The Time Machine (based on the 1948 Escape radio program), Celestial Elf produced an eight-minute animation. Looks like they had fun.

 with grateful thanks to H.G. Wells for his Inspiration & to Koshari Mahana for use of Four Winds 




   The Chronic Argonauts Graphic Novel
adapted by Jason Quinn and Russ Leach
First publication: ebook, Jul 10, 2013

Writer Jason Quinn and artist Russ Leach render Wells’s Time Machine precursor as a graphics novel, expanding the story to include an alien invasion (could it be War of the Worlds?) two millenia in the future.

 They’ve got no manners, those English. 


 

35 items are in the time-travel list for these search settings.
Thanks for visiting my time-travel page, and thanks to the many sources that provided stories and more (see the Links and Credits in the menu at the top). —Michael (main@colorado.edu)