The Time Machine (1895)

Wells makes a journey into the distant future puncture Victorian confidence in progress. The Time Traveller's reading of the Eloi and Morlocks ties imagined evolution to the class divisions he has left behind, but his confidence is itself worth examining. Short enough to revisit without a major commitment, this 1895 book offers more than a contest over correct predictions: ask what evidence the traveller has and what his own society has trained him to see.