The Presence of Materiality and Material Culture in H . G . Wells ’ s

W ithin H. G. W ells’s (1866-1946) short novel The Time Machine (1895) a peculiarly resonant sense of materiality is articulated. The novel can be defined in terms of the ways in which not just objects, but rather a more encompassing sense of materiality has been meticulously arranged so as to convey a detailed, familiar environment into which a fantastic element is introduced. This sense of a graspable everyday setting is dependent on a solidity of detailed materiality, as are the fantastic elements that disrupt them. This suggested quality of materiality and material culture relates not only to recognisably object-based artefacts but also to notions of selfhood. From this single text, I will attempt to construct a speculative notion of material culture, or rather, I will be analysing the presence of material culture and materiality, and attempting to build upon it. In this way, I will move towards the construction of a speculative notion of material culture, making the case for the novel as a valuable and privileged form as a generator of hermeneutic possibility.