The Time Machine
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50 free The Time Machine trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
H. G. Wells was still in his twenties when he wrote the story that gave English the phrase time machine. In one short book a Victorian inventor rides into the year 802,701, meets the childlike Eloi and the Morlocks who live beneath them, and comes home with a tale his dinner guests struggle to believe. This quiz follows the whole journey: the dinner-table argument that opens the book, the Traveller's days among the Eloi and his fight to recover his stolen machine, and the strange shores he reaches near the end of the world. It also covers Wells himself and how the book came about, the 1960 and 2002 film versions, and the sequels, spin-offs and tributes the story has inspired. It suits students studying the book, reading groups, science-fiction fans and anyone who has seen one of the films and wants to find out how much of the original they remember. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so the questions are just as good played on screen as printed out for a lesson or a quiz night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which sitcom's friends buy a full-size replica of the 1960 film's time machine at an online auction?
The Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang Theory had its heroes bid on what they took for a miniature, only for a full-size machine to arrive. Morlocks then haunt Sheldon's dreams.
Q 02Which breakfast food played the lava that buries London in the 1960 film The Time Machine?
Oatmeal
Oatmeal was cooked days ahead and left over a hot weekend, so it had fermented by the time it flowed across the model streets. The smell on set was foul.
Q 03How is Simon Wells, who directed the 2002 film The Time Machine, related to its author H. G. Wells?
Great-grandson
Great-grandson Simon Wells came from animation and had never directed live action. He made his pitch to the studio by pointing to his own surname.
Q 04What is the only food eaten by the gentle Eloi of the year 802,701 in The Time Machine?
Fruit
Fruit is all the Eloi eat, because horses, cattle and dogs died out long ago. The Time Traveller has to go without meat for his whole stay.
Q 05Which meat does the Time Traveller demand on staggering into his own dinner party from the future?
Mutton
Mutton is all he asks for, and he refuses to tell his story until he has eaten it. By his own count he has lived eight days since four that afternoon.
Q 06Which killer flees to San Francisco in H. G. Wells's time machine in the film Time After Time?
Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper is unmasked as one of the friends Wells shows his invention to, and Wells follows him to 1979. Malcolm McDowell plays the novelist.
Q 07What does the Time Traveller lay on the table as evidence of his journey, put in his pocket by Weena?
Two white flowers
Two white flowers, slipped into his pocket by Weena, belong to no species his guests can identify. The narrator still has them years after the Traveller vanishes.
Q 08The Time Traveller decides the underground Morlocks descend from which part of Victorian society?
The working class
The working class, already labouring in underground workrooms in Wells's day, is shut below for good in his account. The idle rich above dwindle into the Eloi.
Q 09Wells's Time Traveller is nameless in the book; what do his friends call him in the 1960 film?
George
George is what his friends call him, and a brass plate on the machine spells out H. George Wells. The film's director happened to share the name.
Q 10What does Weena dread above everything else, a terror shared by all the Eloi in The Time Machine?
The dark
The dark is when the Morlocks climb to the surface to hunt, so the Eloi crowd into their halls every night. None of them ever sleeps alone or outdoors.
Q 11What does the Time Traveller accidentally start that costs Weena her life as they flee the Morlocks?
A forest fire
A forest fire grows out of a blaze he lights to cover their retreat through the woods. It scatters the Morlocks, but Weena is lost in it.
Q 12From what fate does the Time Traveller save Weena while the other Eloi look on and do nothing?
Drowning
Drowning nearly takes her when cramp seizes her as she bathes, and not one of her companions moves to help. From then on she follows him everywhere.
Q 13Inside the bronze pedestal of which marble statue do the Morlocks hide the stolen Time Machine?
A winged sphinx
Q 21Which milestone in H. G. Wells's writing career does The Time Machine, published in 1895, represent?
His first novel
His first novel earned him £100 when it ran as a magazine serial. Its title also gave English a new term for any such device.
Q 22What loss drives Alexander Hartdegen to build his machine in the 2002 film The Time Machine?
His fiancée's murder
His fiancée's murder by a mugger sends him back to save her, only for her to die again in a road accident. Wells's own Traveller has no such motive.
Q 23In the 2002 film The Time Machine, what is accidentally destroyed in 2037, dooming civilisation?
The Moon
A winged sphinx with a faint smile seems to watch him from the moment he arrives. Wells asked for it to appear on the cover of the first London edition.
Q 14What kind of building does the ruined Palace of Green Porcelain turn out to be in The Time Machine?
A museum
A museum, it reminds him of London's South Kensington, with fossil skeletons and rusting machinery under thick dust. He searches it for anything useful against the Morlocks.
Q 15Which find in an airtight case makes the Time Traveller dance for joy in the far future?
A box of matches
A box of matches hands him the one thing the Morlocks cannot bear, and he celebrates with a whistled tune and an improvised dance. Weena is delighted.
Q 16Which parts does the Time Traveller unscrew and pocket so no one in 802,701 can run his machine?
The levers
The levers go into his pocket the moment curious Eloi start fingering the machine. So when the Morlocks drag it away, they cannot make it travel.
Q 17Which system does the Time Traveller first think has triumphed, seeing no private houses in 802,701?
Communism
Communism is the single word he says to himself on noticing that cottages and family homes have vanished. He soon learns the truth is far uglier.
Q 18Which monstrous creatures stalk the Time Traveller on a red beach millions of years ahead?
Giant crabs
Giant crabs as big as a table wave whip-like antennae at him, and one brushes his cheek from behind. He escapes by jumping a month onward.
Q 19The 2002 film The Time Machine moves the inventor's home from near London to which American city?
New York
New York is where Alexander Hartdegen teaches at Columbia University in 1899. The film's Eloi live on cliffs in what used to be Manhattan.
Q 20Which other H. G. Wells novel had the maker of the 1960 film The Time Machine already produced?
The War of the Worlds
The War of the Worlds reached cinemas in 1953 with Pal producing and Byron Haskin directing. For the 1960 film he took the director's chair himself.
The Moon breaks apart thanks to the people settling it, and the planet becomes all but uninhabitable. Its fragments still hang in the sky 800,000 years on.
Q 24Which Australian actor played the Time Traveller, renamed Alexander Hartdegen, in the 2002 film?
Guy Pearce
Guy Pearce called the shoot a gruelling test of patience and nerves. He also admitted he was not at all happy with what he did in it.
Q 25Which Oscar-winning Englishman plays the telepathic Über-Morlock in the 2002 film The Time Machine?
Jeremy Irons
Jeremy Irons plays a figure Wells never wrote: an intelligent ruler who commands the other Morlocks with his mind. He ages to nothing outside the machine's bubble.
Q 26Shots of the world changing at high speed won the 1960 film The Time Machine which Oscar?
Best Special Effects
Best Special Effects went to Gene Warren and Tim Baar, on a film that cost under $1 million. Wah Chang built the machine itself, a sled with a large spinning disc.
Q 27On what kind of seat does the Time Traveller sit to work the controls in H. G. Wells's novel?
A saddle
A saddle is his word for it, which fits a book Wells himself measured against the bicycle. He wrote that it had lasted as long as the safety bicycle, born about the same date.
Q 28In which Surrey town on the Thames does the Time Traveller host his weekly dinners in Wells's novel?
Richmond
Richmond is where the narrator goes to dine, and the world of the Eloi lies on the very same hillside 800,000 years on. The machine moves through time, not across country.
Q 29How does the narrator of The Time Machine identify most guests at the Time Traveller's dinners?
By their jobs
By their jobs: the Medical Man, the Psychologist, the Editor and the Provincial Mayor all go unnamed. The red-haired, argumentative Filby is a rare exception.
Q 30Besides length, breadth and thickness, what does the Time Traveller say every real body must have?
Duration
Duration is his word for time, which he treats as a fourth dimension just like the three of space. A cube that lasts for no time at all, he argues, cannot exist.