The Time Machine by H. G. Wells was a natural for Pulp magazine republishing. It was a seminal work of Science Fiction establishing the concept of time travel. And it was short. Unlike republishing Frankenstein (which Weird Tales did in eight installments in May-December 1932) The Time Machine could be published in a single issue of a Pulp. This happened three times.
The first was Hugo Gernsback using the novel in Amazing Stories, May 1927. Hugo reprinted plenty of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. This was because it was cheap and to instruct his new stable of readers and writers as to what was good Science Fiction. Oddly, Wells didn’t get the cover. But the novel did get one illustration by Frank R. Paul. Paul chose the meeting between the Time Traveler and the Eloi with the sphinx looking down. This is unfortunate because Paul’s human figures at this time were not very good. Honestly, it’s a pretty boring picture.
Mary Gnaedinger and Famous Fantastic Mysteries did not repeat that error in August 1950. They got Pulp cover master, Norman Saunders, to do the most exciting scene, when the Time Traveler escapes the Morlocks. Normie, being a Pulp artist, knew to throw Weena in (even though she was probably dead at this point) for some sex appeal.
The interior art is even more classic. It was done by Virgil Finlay. His Morlocks are even creepier. His version of the sphinx is an often reprinted example of his work (which is voluminous). He even got in the crabs from the far future.
Two Complete Science-Adventure Books, Winter 1951 paired Wells with L. Sprague de Camp’s Sword & Sorcery novel, The Tritonian Ring. (Not the most logical pair.) Allen Anderson does the double cover. I have to assume that woman is Weena, but he doesn’t really do much here. Herman Vestal illustrates the same scene inside as Frank R. Paul but makes it more exciting some how.
Satellite Science Fiction (August 1958) gave us a special treat, a lost edit from the original novel. This short scene has the Time Traveler encounter a centipede-like creature in the far future. It was trimmed for length. Sadly, Cylvia Kleinman didn’t hire a great artist to illustrate the scene.
It is strange to think that these were some of the first images for The Time Machine. The original publication in 1894 in The National Observer did not offer up any classic illustrations. Nor did book publishers add any. But the comics weren’t far behind the Pulps with a Gilberton adaptation in 1947, and a classic Alex Nino version in Marvel Classics Comics #2 (1976).
After the Pulps, the film version in 1960, a lackluster TV version in 1978 and a remake in 2002 would give us new images. Rod Taylor and his spinning disk machine are a favorite of mine. George Pal gave us the classic “flesh-eating Morlocks!” The Guy Pierce film was stupid but I did like the scene where the Time Traveler meets the king of the Morlocks (played by Jeremy Irons). It is too bad SF film makers feel the need add action and explosions instead of focusing on what made novel classics. Like so many late Victorian Gothics, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Island of Dr. Moreau all come to mind, Hollywood has added its own elements and the originals get obscured by additions and variations. A true adaptation of The Time Machine probably will never happen. We have to satisfy ourselves with Planet of the Morlocks.
