The book describes the journey of the inventor of a time machine into the future. The plot is built around the fascinating adventures of the protagonist in a world 800,000 years ahead; in depicting it, the author drew on the negative trends in the development of the capitalist society of his own time, which led many critics to call the book a warning novel. In addition, the novel was the first to describe many ideas related to time travel that will long retain their appeal for readers and authors of new works.