As far as the average reader in 1895 was concerned, time only moved in one direction and at one speed. H.G. Wells changed all that with the publication of "The Time Machine," which popularized the concept of time travel, now a distinctive trope in sci-fi. An inventor in Victorian England invents a time machine which he uses to go to the year 802,701 A.D., where he finds that the human race has gone through some rather distinctive changes.
