The Time Machine is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novella by H. G. Wells published in 1895. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively forward or backward through time. The term "time machine" coined by Wells is now almost universally used to refer to such a vehicle or device.

Utilizing a frame story set in then-present Victorian England Wells' text focuses on a recount of the otherwise anonymous Time Traveller's journey into the far future. A work of future history and speculative evolution Time Machine is interpreted in modern times as a commentary on the increasing inequality and class divisions of Wells' era which he projects as giving rise to two separate human species: the fair childlike Eloi and the savage simian Morlocks distant descendants of the contemporary upper and lower classes respectively. It is believed that Wells' depiction of the Eloi as a race living in plenitude and abandon was inspired by the utopic romance novel News from Nowhere (1890) though Wells' universe in the novel is notably more savage and brutal.