H. G. Wells’ When the Sleeper Wakes (German Title: Wenn der Schläfer erwacht) follows Graham, an ordinary Englishman who falls into a mysterious sleep at the end of the nineteenth century. When he finally awakens, more than two hundred years have passed. The world he returns to is almost unrecognizable.

During Graham’s long sleep, society has been transformed by technological and industrial development. Vast cities have emerged, machines dominate everyday life, and humanity has achieved extraordinary material progress. Yet this progress has come at a tremendous social cost. Society is deeply divided between a wealthy and powerful elite and a vast working population living under oppressive conditions.

Graham soon discovers that his accidental disappearance has made him enormously wealthy. His investments have accumulated for centuries, making him one of the richest—and potentially most powerful—men in the world. His awakening therefore creates a political crisis. The ruling elite, led by the mysterious Council, wants to control Graham and use his wealth and legal authority to preserve the existing social order.

As Graham begins to explore the world of the future, he encounters the enormous gap between the privileged classes and the workers who sustain their civilization. He gradually realizes that the seemingly advanced society around him is built upon exploitation and strict social control.

Graham becomes involved with a group of rebels who oppose the existing system. His enormous wealth gives him a unique position: although he comes from a completely different era, he may possess the power to challenge the forces that have shaped the future.

What begins as a strange story about a man waking up in the distant future eventually becomes a political and social conflict involving revolution, class struggle, technological progress, and the concentration of power.

When the Sleeper Wakes is therefore more than a conventional science-fiction time-travel story. Wells uses Graham’s perspective to examine what might happen if industrial and technological progress continued without corresponding social progress. The novel presents a future of extraordinary technological achievement alongside extreme inequality and authoritarian control.

Graham’s awakening ultimately serves as a thought experiment: what would a person from our own time think if he suddenly woke up centuries later and discovered that humanity had transformed the world—but perhaps not itself?

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