Free public-domain audiobook
Listen to The Time Machine as a free audiobook on iPhone
You can listen to The Time Machine by H. G. Wells as a free audiobook on your iPhone. Because the book is in the public domain, you can download a free EPUB edition and have it read aloud with natural on-device voices - privately, offline, and without buying an audiobook.
A Victorian inventor travels to the year 802,701 and finds humanity split into two species - the gentle Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks. Wells uses the trip as a parable about class and where it might lead. It is short, ideas-first, and one of the foundational science-fiction stories.
Why The Time Machine is free to listen to
The Time Machine was published in 1895 and is public domain. Free EPUB editions are widely available, so the whole novella is free to listen to.
Length: A novella - short, a single evening’s listen.
How to listen to The Time Machine on iPhone
- Download a free public-domain EPUB of The Time Machine (Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks both offer one).
- Move the EPUB to your iPhone via AirDrop, iCloud Drive, email, or a direct download into Files.
- Open the EPUB in a reader app that reads text aloud, or use Apple's built-in Speak Screen to hear the open page.
- Choose a voice and press play. A reader that generates the voice on the device works offline, with nothing uploaded.
Questions & answers
Is The Time Machine a full novel or a novella?
The Time Machine is a novella - short enough to listen to in one or two sittings. Despite its length it launched the modern time-travel genre and packs in a complete journey to the far future. Its brevity makes it an excellent first public-domain science-fiction listen.
Does The Time Machine read well with text-to-speech?
The Time Machine reads cleanly with on-device voices because Wells wrote it as a calm, first-person account told to dinner guests. The prose is plain and explanatory rather than ornate, so a synthetic voice handles it smoothly from start to finish.