Main content

The Time Machine (Archive Episode)

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas and anxieties in late Victorian London, explored by HG Wells in his story of time travel, evolution and a planet unfit for humans.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas explored in HG Wells' novella, published in 1895, in which the Time Traveller moves forward to 802,701 AD. There he finds humanity has evolved into the Eloi and Morlocks, where the Eloi are small but leisured fruitarians and the Morlocks live below ground, carry out the work and have a different diet. Escaping the Morlocks, he travels millions of years into the future, where the environment no longer supports humanity.
With Simon Schaffer Professor of History of Science at Cambridge University Amanda Rees Historian of science at the University of York And Simon James Professor in the Department of English Studies at Durham University
We are also remembering Simon James who passed away this summer and who, we are told, really enjoyed this recording.
Producer: Simon Tillotson

22 days left to listen

52 minutes

More episodes

See all episodes from In Our Time

Featured

  • .

In Our Time podcasts

Download programmes from the huge In Our Time archive.

The In Our Time Listeners' Top 10

If you鈥檙e new to In Our Time, this is a good place to start.

Arts and Ideas podcast

Download the best of Radio 3's Free Thinking programme.

Podcast

  • In Our Time

    Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.