Book excerpt: This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition of The Time Machine includes a glossary and reader's notes to help the modern reader contend with Wells? vision of the future.As he approached the turn of the twentieth century, H.G. Wells explored the implications of the rising tide of Socialism and Darwin?s theory of evolution to envision a future?800,000 years from his own day?in which suffering, death, and human labor seem to have been replaced by beauty, peace, and innocent play. What Wells? unnamed Time Traveller ultimately comes to discover, however, are the horrific truths of a new Humanity, split and evolved into two separate races living in a false Paradise that actually fosters idiocy, weakness, and mortal terror. Originally written in 1898, The Time Machine examines the age-old questions of humankind?s ultimate destiny and the role we play in shaping it.