The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 1882 to 1889



   The Diothas, or A Far Look Ahead
aka Looking Forward, or the Diothas
by John Macnie (as by Ismar Thiusen)
First publication: 1883

A jilted Ismar Thiusen visits his friend Utis Estai who, through mesmerism, takes the two of them to a 96th century puritanical utopian society where he is viewed by the locals as a mentally ill man who believes he is from the 19th century.

 According to the view of things above adverted to, the different stages in the history of our race are not successive only, but are also co-existent and co-extensive with each other. Just as in a block of marble, there is contained, not one only, but every possible statue, though, of the whole number, only one at a time can be made evident to our senses; so, in a given region of space, any number of worlds can co-exist, each with its own population conscious of only that world, or set of phenomena, to which their ego is attuned. 



No Time Travel. Move along.
  “An Inhabitant of Carcosa” by Ambrose Bierce, San Francisco Newsletter, 25 Dec 1886 [no definite time travel ]
  aka “Can Such Things Be?”





   El Anacronópete
English title: The Time Ship (translated from Spanish)
by Enrique Gaspar
First publication: 1887

Mad scientist Don Sindulfo and his best friend Benjamin take off in Sindulfo’s time machine along with Sindulfo’s niece, her maid, a troop of Spanish soldiers, and a bordelloful of French strumpets for madcap adventures at the 1860 Battle of Téouan, Queen Isabella’s Spain, nondescript locales in the eleventh and seventh centuries, third-century China, the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, and a biblical time shortly after the flood. Don’t worry overly much about the twist at the end: it was still a fine romp.

A professional translation of the novel into English by Yolanda Molina-Gavilan and Andrea L. Bell was published in 2012, and after my year of Spanish at the University of Colorado, I completed my own three-year translation project in 2014.

 “One step at a time,” argued a sensible voice. “If the Anacronópete aims to undo history, it seems to me that we must be congratulated as it allows us to amend our failures.”
   “Quite right,” called a married man jammed into the front of the bus, thinking of his tiresome wife. “As soon as the ticket office opens to the public, I’m booking passage to the eve of my wedding.” 

Enrique Gaspar, Master Traveller

Enrique Gaspar was a contemporary of H.G. Wells, though there’s no indication that Wells knew of his fellow European’s Spanish novel, El Anacronópete, the first tale of a scientist inventing a time machine—to be more specific, a flying time ship several stories high.



No Time Travel. Move along.
  “The Horla” by Guy de Maupassant, Gil Blas, 26 Oct 1887 [supernatural story ]

The story and its importance were noted in the first issue of Tomorrow.

   “The Chronic Argonauts”
by H.G. Wells
First publication: The Science School Journal, 1888

Wells abandoned this early version of the story after three installments. He may not have liked it, but it’s a fun historical read—and the first mention that I’ve seen of time as the fourth dimension.

 Those who were there say that they saw Dr. Nebogipfel, standing in the toneless electric glare, on a peculiar erection of brass and ebony and ivory; and that he seemed to be smiling at them, half pityingly and half scornfully, as it is said martyrs are wont to smile. 




   Looking Backward from 2000 to 1887
by Edward Bellamy
First publication: 1888

As with The Diothas from earlier in the same decade, our hero tells the story of a man (Julian West) who undergoes hypnotically induced time travel, this time to the year 2000 and a socialist utopian society.

 It would have been reason enough, had there been no other, for abolishing money, that its possession was no indication of rightful title to it. In the hands of the man who had stolen it or murdered for it, it was as good as in those which had earned it by industry. People nowadays interchange gifts and favors out of friendship, but buying and selling is considered absolutely inconsistent with the mutual benevolence and disinterestedness which should prevail between citizens and the sense of community of interest which supports our social system. According to our ideas, buying and selling is essentially anti-social in all its tendencies. It is an education in self-seeking at the expense of others, and no society whose citizens are trained in such a school can possibly rise above a very low grade of civilization. 



No Time Travel. Move along.
  “Mysterious Disappearances” by Ambrose Bierce, The San Francisco Examiner, 14 Oct 1888 [people-trapping dimensions ]
  aka ‘Whither?’



   A Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
by Mark Twain
First publication: 1889

A clonk on the head transports Hank Morgan from the 19th century back to the time of Camelot.

 You know about transmigration of souls; do you know about transportation of epochs—and bodies? 

Mark Twain, Master Traveller

I first read the original in 7th grade: for me, a vast improvement on Huck Finn. I do see some roots of Robert A. Heinlein (a fellow Master Traveller) in the Connecticut Yankee’s political, economic and social machinations.






   Sylvie and Bruno
by Lewis Carroll
First publication: 13 Dec 1889

Alice told us, “I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” But Lewis Carroll’s lesser known characters have no such injunction against time traveling. Near the end of the first volume of Sylvie and Bruno, the Professor—who is a sometimes tutor for the royal children Sylvie and Bruno—produces his Outlandish watch that controls time and permits backward time travel up to a full month.

Alas, the Outlandish watch doesn’t play much of a role in the story. Lewis Carrol tries to use it to avert a bicycle accident, and indeed the accident is annihilated, but only temporarily until the time when the watch was first set backward reoccurs. At that point, all is once again as it was with the bicyclist in a lump on the ground.

 “It goes, of course, at the usual rate. Only the time has to go with it. Hence, if I move the hands, I change the time. To move them forwards, in advance of the true time, is impossible: but I can move them as much as a month backwards—that is the limit. And then you have the events all over again—with any alterations experience may suggest.”
“What a blessing such a watch would be,” I thought, “in real life! To be able to unsay some heedless word—to undo some reckless deed! Might I see the thing done?”
“With pleasure!” said the good natured Professor. “When I move this hand back to here,” pointing out the place, “History goes back fifteen minutes!” 


 

9 items are in the time-travel list for these search settings.
Thanks for visiting my time-travel page, and thanks to the many sources that provided stories and more (see the Links and Credits in the menu at the top). —Michael (main@colorado.edu)