The Time Traveller: Sequel to the Time Machine

By Paul Morrison

What if you could share an adventure with the author of THE TIME MACHINE? What if you could manage to find a lost and forgotten manuscript that would continue the time travel experience narrated by H. G. Wells himself. Perhaps this is possible...
H. G Wells inspired millions of readers with his ground breaking and influential science fiction novel. Transporting himself to the magic of this impressive master allowed Paul Morrison to pay homage and to extend the trip to other times and other places.
What is time?
Is it merely a
concept of the mind?
Does it really exist?
And if so, where does this abstraction take us
and why are we so
controlled by it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Morrison
• Release date: Jun 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9780992267315

Paul Morrison

Paul Morrison, a retired museologist, has also been a writer for most of his life. “I cannot remember a time when I was not writing, even when I was five or six years old. I grew up with books such as TREASURE ISLAND, 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA and THE TIME MACHINE — these and the many other books which I read in my early years fed my imagination, a voracious imagination transporting me to faraway places, other worlds and to other times in both the recent and the more distant past...” Many of these worlds and places are visited in the novels and short story collections he has written.Besides a love of fiction, Paul also reads widely on ancient history and archaeology. “I am particularly interested in Ancient Egypt, mainly Old Kingdom Egypt during the age of the pyramid builders. I have always been intrigued as to how the pyramids were built and also about the lives of the pharaohs and the workers who constructed the pyramids. There were many questions filling my mind, but few if any answers.” This inquiring interest led to the GIZA TRILOGY books, THE PHARAOH, THE SPHINX and THE THREE QUEENS, a monumental work of well-researched fiction set against the backdrop of the three pyramids on the Giza Plateau. Together, with their associated books, THE DIVINE LIGHT, ETERNAL EGYPT (Supplement to the Giza Trilogy), and SECRET OF THE PYRAMID, these books total more than 1.3 million words! Other books written by Paul cover a wide range of subjects including historical fiction, science fiction, ghost and detective stories as well as many other genres.Paul currently lives in Hobart, Tasmania with his wife in a house overlooking the Derwent River. “The magnificent views of Hobart and Mount Wellington inspire me in my writings — but the most important inspiration is my wife, Helena.”

Book preview

THE TIME TRAVELLER

Paul Morrison

The Unofficial Sequel to THE TIME MACHINE by H.G.Wells

Copyright 2013, Paul Morrison

Watercolour renderings by the author

ISBN: 978-0-9922673-1-5

Dedicated to my special Helena who has opened up new worlds and a whole new universe for me, one we share together...

In the following extract, Herbert George (H.G.) Wells remembers (back in 1895), the difficulty of writing and publishing his first novel, The Time Machine:

It seemed rather useless to go on writing articles. All the periodicals to which I contributed were holding stuff of mine in proof and it might be indiscreet to pour in fresh matter to such a point that the tanks overflowed and returned it. But I had one thing in the back of my mind. Henley, (Well’s potential publisher) had told me that it was just possible he would presently find backing for a monthly. If so, he thought I might review the Time Traveller articles as a serial story. Anyhow that was something to do and I set to work on the Time Machine and rewrote it from end to end.

I still remember writing that part of the story in which the Time Traveller returns to find his machine removed and his retreat cut off. I sat alone at the round table downstairs writing steadily in the luminous circle cast by a shaded paraffin lamp. Jane had gone to bed and her mother had been ill in bed all day. It was a very warm blue August night and the window was wide open. The best part of my mind fled through the story in a state of concentration before the Morlocks but some outlying regions of my brain were recording other things. Moths were fluttering in ever and again and though I was inconscious of them at the time, one must have flopped near me and left some trace in my marginal consciousness that became a short story I presently wrote, A Moth, Genus Novo. And outside in the summer night a voice went on and on, a feminine voice that rose and fell. It was Mrs. — I forget her name — our landlady in open rebellion at last, talking to a sympathetic neighbour in the next garden and talking through the window at me. I was aware of her and heeded her not, and she lacked the courage to beard me in my parlour. "Would I never go to bed? How could she lock up with that window staring open? Never had she such people in her house before, — never. A nice lot if everything was known about them. Often when you didn’t actually know about things you could feel them. What she let her rooms to was summer visitors who walked about all day and went to bed at night. And she hated meaness and there were some who could be mean about sixpences. People with lodgings to let in Sevenoaks ought to know the sort of people who might take them..."

It went on and on. I wrote on grimly to that accompaniment. I wrote her out and she made her last comment with the front door well and truly slammed. I finished my chapter before I shut the window and turned down and blew out the lamp. And somehow amidst the gathering disturbance of those days the Time Machine got itself finished. Jane kept up a valiant front and fended off from me as much as she could the trouble that was assailing her on both sides. But a certain gay elasticity disappeared. It was a disagreeable time for her. She went and looked at other apartments and was asked unusual questions.

It was a retreat rather than a return we made to London, with the tart reproaches of the social system echoing in our ears. But before our ultimate flight I had a letter from Henley telling me it was all right about that monthly of his. He was to start The New Review in January and he would pay me 100 pounds for the Time Machine as his first serial story. One hundred pounds! And at the same time the mills of the Pall Mall Gazette began to go round and consume my work again. Mrs. Robbins went back to stay with friends in North London and Jane and I found our old rooms with our Scotch landlady at 12, Mornington Road, still free for us.

From Experiment in Autobiography by H.G. Wells, first published in 1934.

* The original book, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells was first published in 1895 and is now available in the public domain. It can be downloaded or read for free from Project Gutenberg and most safe public domain sites.

Table of Contents

PREFACE

A LOT OF THINKING TO BE DONE

A NOT TOO DISTANT FUTURE

THE DROWNED WORLD

TIME AND SPACE

GODS AND MERE MORTALS

THE FACE OF BEAUTY

THE CHALLENGE

THE STAR-LIT SKY

THE LITTLE BOOKSHOP IN 1898

LOVE KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES

THE END OF THE TIME MACHINE

EPILOGUE, OR IS IT?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

What is time?

Is it merely a

concept of the mind?

Does it really exist?

And if so, where does this abstraction take us

and why are we so

controlled by it?

PREFACE

JUST OVER A WEEK ago, I came across a remarkable discovery. It was hidden in the lining of an old wardrobe that we, my wife Helena and I had purchased from an antique shop in Hobart, Tasmania.

The wardrobe was imported from England by its owner — an extremely rare item which you won’t find anywhere else in Hobart, or for that matter in any antique shop on the mainland, the dealer told me. He was hoping to impress me enough into blindly paying him the small fortune he was asking. The wardrobe, however, was a common one dating from the late Victorian period c.1890s, but more importantly, it was in extremely poor condition. The original owner was an Englishman who moved from England to Tasmania some years ago, said the dealer. He noticed my continued reluctance and seemed desperate for a sale.

I will tell you what, he said as his own eyes again examined the wardrobe. I am an honest man. I think we can do a fair deal and drop the price by 10%. I thought about the offer closely for a moment. It was still too much money to spend on such a poor piece of furniture. Nevertheless, I wanted it because despite its worn appearance, the wardrobe had some charm, some character about it. Helena nudged me and whispered quietly in my ear:

We can fix the wardrobe with some varnish and sandpaper. It will look good in the second bedroom. The hesitation disappeared.

20%, I was quick to reply to the dealer.

Done! he replied even quicker. I am sure the wardrobe will bring many pleasant surprises. It is very old and may even have some ghosts.

I didn’t take much notice of this light conversation until a few days later. This was when we were replacing the lining in the back of the wardrobe and found something hidden there. It had been hidden behind a false wall of water stained plywood, the object being carefully wrapped in a dirty and torn cloth. It was a manuscript.

It was obvious that this bound manuscript wrapped in the torn and dirty cloth had been placed there a long time ago. Why it was hidden behind the lining and by whom was a mystery, a mystery, that is, until with great care as the pages were extremely fragile, I began reading to Helena what was written on these pages — written by a Herbert Wells. As I carefully read on, I soon realised with a curious surprise that I knew who this man was.

I have always enjoyed the works of H. G. (Herbert George)