The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 1931

   “Via the Time Accelerator”
by Francis J. Brueckel, Jr. (as by Frank J. Bridge)
First publication: Wonder Stories, Jan 1931

Mathematician and physicist Anton Brookhurst takes a trip 1,000,000 years into the future in a machine that was inspired by H.G. Wells and explained (in this story) by a series of official-looking equations, but, unlike in The Time Machine, Brookhurst’s machine resides in an airplane, and Brookhurst himself examines various paradoxes, such as: Would he have been brave enough to embark on the journey had he not first seen himself safely return?

 
T  =  t
 √ℓ - v²/c²  
 


   “A Flight into Time”
by Robert H. Wilson
First publication: Wonder Stories, Feb 1931

Ted Storrs is inexplicably transported from 1933 to 2189 (I almost thought, Hooray! Not a round number of years!—but it turns out to be 28 years into the future) where he is amazed by the air traffic congestion, beamed atomic power, casual nudity, interplanetary travel, and more.



   “The Meteor Girl”
by Jack Williamson
First publication: Astounding, Mar 1931

When a meteor lands on the beachfront airfield of our narrator and his partner Charlie King, Charlie realizes that it provides a portal through space-time through which they view the death-at-sea of Charlie’s ex-fiancée.

 A terrestrial astronomer may reckon that the outburst on Nova Persei occurred a century before the great fire of London, but an astronomer on the Nova may reckon with equal accuracy that the great fire occurred a century before the outburst on the Nova. 

Jack Williamson, Master Traveller

In the 1930s alone, Williamson had five classic time travel stories culminating with “The Legion of Time,” to be followed by what has to be the first of the let’s-kill-Hitler stories and another seven decades of unmatched science fiction.


   “The Empire of Glass”
by Frank Miloche
First publication: Wonder Stories Quarterly, Spring 1931

A present-day man puts on a helmet that lets him view the future where a scientist named Nebor outlines his plans to save mankind from giant insects by transporting all men to either the distant past or the far future.

   “An Adventure in Futurity”
by Clark Ashton Smith
First publication: Wonder Stories, Apr 1931

Conrad Elkins, an scientist from 15,000 A.D. who hopes to find a solution to the problem of too many male babies in his time, strikes up a friendship with Hugh in present-day New York City, eventually inviting Hugh to return with him to a future of infinite leisure where Venusian slaves with Martian overseers outnumber humans five-to-one.

 And do you ever think that present-day New York will some time be as fragmentary and fabulous as Troy or Zimbabwe? That archaeologists may delve in its ruins, beneath the sevenfold increment of later cities, and find a few rusting mechanisms of disputed use, and potteries of doubtful date, and inscriptions which no one can decipher? 




   The Exile of Time
by Ray Cummings
First publication: Astounding Stories, Apr–Jul 1931

George Rankin and his best friend Larry rescue an hysterical Mistress Mary Atwood from a locked New York City basement only to find that she believes she’s come from more than 150 years in the past, chased by a crazy man named Tugh and his mad robot, Migul.

 Let’s try and reduce it to rationality. The cage was—is, I should ay, since of course it still exists—that cage is a Time-traveling vehicle. It is traveling back and forth through Time, operated by a Robot. 




   A Connecticut Yankee
adapted by William M. Conselman (David Butler, director)
First release: 6 Apr 1931

At the beginning, this version of the story borrows a bit from Frankenstein (a mad scientist) and H.G. Wells (who invents a time machine), but in the end, poor Hank Morgan (actually, Hank “Martin” in this case, portrayed by Will Rogers) still ends up at the round table predicting an eclipse.

 Think! Think of hearing Lincoln’s own voice delivering the Gettysburg address! 




   “Worlds to Barter”
by John Wyndham (as by John B. Harris)
First publication: Wonder Stories, May 1931

In Wyndham’s first published story, Jon Lestrange (the distant descendant of the world’s foremost inventor) comes back to the moment of his ancestor’s greatest invention with a story of how his own time was invaded by the people of the 5022nd century, demanding to change temporal places with the people of Lestrange’s time.

 It is a difficult situation, but I hope I shall convince you. Very few men can have had the chance of convincing their great-great-great grandfathers of anything. I am now an anachronism. You see, I was born in the year A.D. 2108,—or should it be, I shall be born in 2108?—and I am—or will be—a refugee from the twenty-second century. I assure you that you will be married shortly, but I can’t remember when—I think I told you I was bad at dates. 


Louise Fazenda (top)
and friend

   Blondes Prefer Bonds
by Lewis R. Foster (Foster, director)
First release: 15 May 1931

I decided to include this movie in the list in the hopes that someone will point me to a copy of the talkie that stars Louise Fazenda and Arthur Hoyt as a married couple who in the hopes of rekindling their vows are thrown back to the time of their courtship.



   “The Man from 2071”
by Sewell Peaslee Wright
First publication: Astounding, Jun 1931

Special Patrol Service officer John Hanson (hero of ten Wright stories) stumbles upon a mad inventor who has traveled many centuries to Hanson’s beachfront Denver in order to obtain knowledge that will let him become the absolute, unquestioned, supreme master back in the 21st century.

 I could not help wondering, as we settle swiftly over the city, whether our historians and geologists and other scientists were really right in saying that Denver had at one period been far from the Pacific. 


   “The Man Who Changed the Future”
by R.F. Starzl
First publication: Wonder Stories, Jun 1931

When Park Helm laments about the state of gangster-overrun Lakopolis, his friend, Professor Nicholson, sends him into the future to observe whether things will get better, but somehow Helm manages to do a lot more than just observe, eventually becoming the future boss man, gaining a lovely wife, and generally righting wrongs.

   “The Time Flight”
by Miles J. Breuer
First publication: Amazing, Jun 1931

Widower Ezra Hubble hatches a scheme to deprive his stepson of an inheritance by taking the money with him to the future.

   “The Raid of the Mercury”
by A.H. Johnson
First publication: Amazing, Jul 1931

A seer projects our narrator into the world of 22,000 A.D where a pirate airship fuels a revolution against the wealthy.

   “Rebellion—5000 A.D.!”
by Garth Bentley
First publication: Wonder Stories, Jul 1931

During an experiment with a new radio technology, Professor Crewe’s assistant (and our narrator) is flung to a post-apocalyptic 5000 A.D. where an authoritarian, largely urban civilization has arisen and a group of rebels are expecting a man from the past to lead them.



   “The Port of Missing Planes”
by Capt. S.P. Meek
First publication: Astounding, Aug 1931

Capt. Meek’s hero, Dr. Bird (an agent of the Bureau of Standards), had at least one minor run-in with time travel in this story of underground molemen (who excavate their tunnels by time travel) who have been duped by the evil Saranoff into serving as a base for Saranoff’s attacks on the southwestern United States (as well as an attack on Dr. Bird’s brain, which is in peril of being sent back in time).

 “I wish I could remember how that time machine was built and operated,” said Dr. Bird reflectively, as he sat in his private laboratory in the Bureau of Standards some time later, “but Jumor did his work well. I can’t even remember what the thing looked like.” 


   “The Time Hoaxers”
by Paul Bolton
First publication: Amazing, Aug 1931

Four men and a woman travel from 2030 to 1930, hoping to advance civilization, but everyone believes that the resulting newpaper stories of their arrival are all fakes.

 They said we could hope to be received only as impostors and fakirs. 


   “The Time-Traveler”
by Ralph Milne Farley
First publication: Weird Tales, Aug 1931

Mathematics professor John D. Smith rues the day he saved his college room-mate from drowning only to have the ungrateful cad thwart his every career move for the next decade. Oh, if only Smith could redo that fateful day!

 If I could go back into the past, there is one event which I should most certainly change: my rescue of Paul Arkwright! 


   “After 1,000,000 Years”
by J.M. Walsh
First publication: Wonder Stories, Oct 1931

Beautiful time traveler Leela Zenken, searching for atomic power to save her people of the future, is aiming for 1985, but hits 1935 instead where hiker John Harling tries to help her.



   The Stone from the Green Star
by Jack Williamson
First publication: Amazing, Oct–Nov 1931

Jack Williamson’s college buddy Dick Smith is transported a couple million years into the future where he meets a blind scientist, falls in love with the scientist’s beautiful daughter, fights the evil lord of the Dark Star, seeks the fountain of youth, wantders through the galaxy, and eventually transmits a manuscript of his adventures back in time to Williamson.

 “That is a space-port where the ships come in from the stars,” the girl said. (Of course, all conversations recorded in Smith’s notes have been translated into our English—if they were not, no one would be able to read them.)
   “Ships from the stars!” Dick ejaculated. 


   “Emperors of Space”
by Jerome Gross and Richard Penny
First publication: Wonder Stories, Nov 1931

Being chased by the Chinese, Luke Raliegh (scientist extraordinaire) and his pal Harry build a giant gyroscope that spins so fast it takes them into the future where they cure the yellow rot and save the world.

In 1946, the serial was released as a novel.

   The Time Stream
by John Taine (aka Eric Temple Bell)
First publication: Wonder Stories, Dec 1931–Mar 1932

In this dated sf classic, four like-minded men from 1906 are swept into the time stream via a mental exercise, taken to the land of Eos in a far-off time (possibly in the past, possibly in the future) where they encounter Cheryl (who may or may not be the Cheryl that they know in their own time) and consider how personal freedom may or may not be abrogated.

 No man or woman of Eos has the authority to direct, check, or in any way influence the free decision and impulses of another without that other’s full and intelligent consent. We demand the right to follow the natural inclinations of our characters. We demand the right to marry. 


   “The World of the Red Sun”
by Clifford D. Simak
First publication: Wonder Stories, Dec 1931

Harl Swanson and Bill Kressman leave Denver in their flying time machine, aiming to travel five millennia, but they end up some five million years later in a desolate world ruled by the evil and cruel brain Golan-Kirt.

I read this in Asimov’s anthology Before the Golden Age, which was the first SFBC book to arrive in my mailbox after going to college in Pullman in the fall of ’74.

 The twentieth century. It had a remote sound, an unreal significance. In this age, with the sun a brick red ball and the city of Denver a mass of ruins, the twentieth century was a forgotten second in the great march of time, it was as remote as the age when man emerged from the beast. 

Clifford D. Simak, Master Traveller

“The World of the Red Sun” is the first of Clifford D. Simak’s many time travel contributions which spanned a total of 56 years.



No Time Travel. Move along.
  “No Traveller Returns” by John Collier [parallel universes ]

  “The Fifth-Dimension Catapult” by Murray Leinster, Astounding, Jan 1931 [parallel universes ]

  “Hell’s Dimension” by Tom Curry, Astounding, Apr 1931 [differing time rates ]

  “The Man Who Evolved” by Edmond Hamilton, Wonder Stories, Apr 1931 [sped up evolution ]

 

26 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)