The National Observer Essays

by H. G. Wells

Release: 17 March 1894 to 23 June 1894
Format: Novelette
Genre: Science Fiction
Audience: Adults
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

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.

— Michael Main

‘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—’

DEBUT

The National Observer Essays, 7-part serial, National Observer, 17 March 1894 to 23 June 1894 [nonconsecutive issues].

VARIANTS

1 English variant

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Groupings

Cited in Paradoxes of Time Travel by Rayn Wasserrman ()
Cited in Time Machines by Paul J. Nahin ()

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY: We haven’t yet mapped out the time travel itinerary.

INDEXER NOTES (SPOILERS!)

Length—a bit more than 10,000 words in all.