The Chronic Argonauts

1888 short story by H. G. Wells

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"The Chronic Argonauts"

Short story by H. G. Wells
Country| United Kingdom
Genre(s)| Thriller, science fiction
Publication

"The Chronic Argonauts" is an 1888 short story by the British science-fiction writer H. G. Wells. It features an inventor who builds a time machine and travels in time using it, and it pre-dates Wells's best-selling 1895 time travel novel The Time Machine by seven years.

## Writing and publication

[edit]

"The Chronic Argonauts" was written in serial parts while Wells was ill and staying with friends in Stoke-on-Trent, from early April to early July 1888. Wells later recalled that: "at Etruria my real writing began. ... Moreover I began ... the original draft of what later became The Time Machine...".[1]

It was published in the April, May, and June 1888 issues of the Royal College of Science student magazine The Science Schools Journal.[citation needed] Two digital versions of the text, available online April 2020, both show four subheadings:[citation needed]

* Being the Account of Dr. Nebogipfel's Sojourn in Llyddwdd
* How an Esoteric Story Became Possible
* The Esoteric Story Based on the Clergyman's Depositions: The Anachronic Man
* The Chronic Argo

"The Chronic Argonauts" was the second story to use an inventor-built machine to travel in time, a year after the publication of Enrique Gaspar y Rimbau's El anacronópete. Despite extensive biographical work on Wells over more than a century, there is no evidence to suggest that Wells saw or was influenced by the 1881 New York newspaper story "The Clock that Went Backward", in which an antique clock served as a time-travel device.

"The Chronic Argonauts" later developed into the famous final version of The Time Machine (1895), with the bulk of the re-writing and new writing being done in 1894. The finished novel has a number of points of similarity with the first short-story version of 1888.

## Plot summary

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A third-person narrator describes the arrival of a mysterious inventor in the inward-looking Welsh town of Llyddwdd. Dr. Moses Nebogipfel takes up residence in a house neglected after the deaths of its former inhabitants. The simple rural folk become apprehensive about Nebogipfel's activities in the house and suspect him of witchcraft. Ultimately they storm the inventor's "devilish" workshop. Nebogipfel escapes with the sympathetic Reverend Elijah Ulysses Cook, in what is later revealed to be a time machine. The unnamed narrator later discovers the dazed Reverend Cook, who has been missing for three weeks. Cook then becomes a second narrator, relating in flashback the night of his disappearance, and a series of subsequent adventures in time with Nebogipfel. He reveals that Nebogipfel understands himself to be an "Anachronic Man", a man whose genius drives him to seek out a time more suited to his abilities. A 'time loop' is implied, in which Nebogipfel went back to the past and killed the previous owners of the house, thus causing it to fall into ruin and enabling him to occupy it for his present-day experiments.

## Inspiration for Nebogipfel

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Since the 1970s there has been some discussion among scholars about a possible source of inspiration for Nebogipfel, since he is the root of the stock character of the time-travelling scientist. These suggestions were summarised by Martin T. Willis, who stated that the scholars had "reached no conclusions about the character of, or inspiration for, the Time Traveler", and added his own suggestion of the American inventor Thomas Edison.[2]

## See also

[edit]

* El anacronópete

## References

[edit]

1. ^ H. G. Wells, Experiment in Autobiography, 1934.
2. ^ Martin T. Willis, "Edison as Time Traveler: H.G. Wells’s Inspiration for his First Scientific Character", Science Fiction Studies, July 1999. http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/78/willis78art.htm

## External links

[edit]

* text at Project Gutenberg Australia

* v
* t
* e

H. G. Wells

Bibliography

Novels|

* The Time Machine (1895)
* The Wonderful Visit (1895)
* The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896)
* The Wheels of Chance (1896)
* The Invisible Man (1897)
* The War of the Worlds (1898)
* When the Sleeper Wakes (1899)
* Love and Mr Lewisham (1900)
* The First Men in the Moon (1901)
* The Sea Lady (1902)
* The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth (1904)
* Kipps (1905)
* A Modern Utopia (1905)
* In the Days of the Comet (1906)
* The War in the Air (1908)
* Tono-Bungay (1909)
* Ann Veronica (1909)
* The History of Mr Polly (1910)
* The Sleeper Awakes (1910)
* The New Machiavelli (1911)
* Marriage (1912)
* The Passionate Friends (1913)
* The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman (1914)
* The World Set Free (1914)
* Bealby (1915)
* Boon (1915)
* The Research Magnificent (1915)
* Mr. Britling Sees It Through (1916)
* The Soul of a Bishop (1917)
* Joan and Peter (1918)
* The Undying Fire (1919)
* The Secret Places of the Heart (1922)
* Men Like Gods (1923)
* The Dream (1924)
* Christina Alberta's Father (1925)
* The World of William Clissold (1926)
* Meanwhile (1927)
* Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island (1928)
* The Autocracy of Mr. Parham (1930)
* The Bulpington of Blup (1932)
* The Shape of Things to Come (1933)
* The Croquet Player (1936)
* Brynhild (1937)
* Star Begotten (1937)
* The Camford Visitation (1937)
* Apropos of Dolores (1938)
* The Brothers (1938)
* The Holy Terror (1939)
* Babes in the Darkling Wood (1940)
* All Aboard for Ararat (1940)
* You Can't Be Too Careful (1941)

Nonfiction|

* Anticipations
* Certain Personal Matters
* Crux Ansata
* The Discovery of the Future
* An Englishman Looks at the World
* Experiment in Autobiography
* The Fate of Man
* First and Last Things
* Floor Games
* The Future in America
* God the Invisible King
* In the Fourth Year
* Little Wars
* Mankind in the Making
* Mind at the End of Its Tether
* Mr. Belloc Objects to "The Outline of History"
* The New America
* The New World Order
* New Worlds for Old
* The Open Conspiracy
* The Outline of History
* Russia in the Shadows
* The Science of Life
* A Short History of the World
* The Story of a Great Schoolmaster
* This Misery of Boots
* Travels of a Republican Radical in Search of Hot Water
* War and the Future
* The Way the World Is Going
* The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind
* World Brain
* A Year of Prophesying

Collections|

* The Country of the Blind and Other Stories
* The Plattner Story and Others
* Select Conversations with an Uncle
* The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents
* Tales of Space and Time
* Twelve Stories and a Dream

Short stories|

* "Æpyornis Island"
* "The Argonauts of the Air"
* "The Beautiful Suit"
* "The Chronic Argonauts"
* "The Cone"
* "The Country of the Blind"
* "The Crystal Egg"
* "A Deal in Ostriches"
* "The Diamond Maker"
* "The Door in the Wall"
* "A Dream of Armageddon"
* "The Empire of the Ants"
* "In the Abyss"
* "The Land Ironclads"
* "Mr. Ledbetter's Vacation"
* "The Lord of the Dynamos"
* "The Man Who Could Work Miracles"
* "The New Accelerator"
* "The Pearl of Love"
* "The Plattner Story"
* "The Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper"
* "The Red Room"
* "The Sea Raiders"
* "The Star"
* "The Stolen Body"
* "A Story of the Days to Come"
* "A Story of the Stone Age"
* "Triumphs of a Taxidermist"
* "The Truth About Pyecraft"
* "A Vision of Judgment"

Screenplays|

* Things to Come (1936)
* The Man Who Could Work Miracles (1937)

Related|

* Political views
* G. P. Wells
* Anthony West (son)
* Joseph Wells (father)
* Simon Wells (great-grandson)
* H. G. Wells Society
* Lunar crater
* Time After Time (1979 film)

* v
* t
* e

H. G. Wells' The Time Machine

Books|

* The Time Machine (1895)

Short-stories|

* "The Grey Man"
* "The Chronic Argonauts"

Characters|

* Weena
* Eloi
* Morlock

Film|

* The Time Machine (1960)
* Time Machine: The Journey Back
* The Time Machine (1978)
* The Time Machine (2002)

Other media|

* Escape (radio program)
* The Rook (comic book series)

Sequels|

* The Space Machine (1976)
* Morlock Night (1979)
* Time After Time (1979) (TV series, film)
* The Time Ships (1995)

Related|

* "Allan and the Sundered Veil"
* TimeRiders

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