The Big List of Time Travel Adventures

 1936



   “In the World’s Dusk”
by Edmond Hamilton
First publication: Weird Tales, Mar 1936

Galos Gann, the greatest scientist whom Earth had ever seen and last man on Earth, vows than mankind will not perish.

 There are no living men and women in the world today. But what of the trillions of men and women who have existed on Earth in the past? Those trillions are separated from me by the abyss of time. Yet . . . 




   “The Shadow Out of Time”
by H.P. Lovecraft
First publication: Astounding, Jun 1936

During an economics lecture, Professor Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee’s body and mind are taken over by a being who can travel to any time and place of his choice, and during the next five years the being studies us, all of which Peaslee pieces together after his return.

Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi says that Lovecraft saw the movie Berkeley Square four times in 1933, and “its portrayal of a man of the 20th century who somehow merges his personality with that of his 18th-century ancestor” served as Lovecraft’s inspiration for this story.

 The projected mind, in the body of the organism of the future, would then pose as a member of the race whose outward form it wore, learning as quickly as possible all that could be learned of the chosen age and its massed information and techniques. 




   “The Land Where Time Stood Still”
by Arthur Leo Zagat
First publication: Thrilling Wonder Stories, Aug 1936

Modern-day Englishman Ronald Stratton and Arthurian damsel Elaise find themselves in a land with people from all ages and predators from the year 6000 A.D.

 All right. Skip it. I’m having trouble understanding you, too. What year do you think this is? 


   “The Time Entity”
by Otto Binder (as by Eando Binder)
First publication: Astounding, Oct 1936

John Dakin considers paradoxes as he communicates by radio with his future descendant.



   Popeye the Sailor Cartoons
created by Elzie Crisler Segar
First time travel: 27 Nov 1936 (Sindbad)

Several early Popeye cartoons had plots that might only be explained by time travel, such as meeting Sindbad (played by Bluto) in a sixteen minute 1936 cartoon. However, for me, the real time travelin’ began in the 1960s television cartoon when the Professor had a time machine. Here’s a list of episodes which I know of that might be explained by time travel. Send me others that you spot!
  1. Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad (1936) to ancient Persia?
  2. Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba (1937) time of 1001 Nights
  3. Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (1939) evil vizier to present
  4. Popeye and the Pirates (1947) pirate ship to present
  5. Wotta Knight (1947) jousting tournament
  6. Pre-Hysterical Manb (1948) caveman times
  7. Popeye Meets Hercules (1948) to ancient Greece
  8. Robin Hood-Winked (1948) to Sherwood Forest
  9. Pilgrim Popeye (1951) Popeye as a pilgrim
  10. Big Bad Sindbad (1952) mostly reuse from 1936
  11. The Golden-Type Fleece (1960) to ancient Greece
  12. Popeye and the Dragon (1960) to middle ages
  13. Invisible Popeye (1960) future Martians
  14. Out of This World (1960) to the future
  15. The Glad Gladiator (1960) Roman gladiators
  16. Popeyed Columbus (1960) 1492
  17. Astro-Nut (1960) just time dilation
  18. Popeye’s Tea Party (1960) Boston Tea Party
  19. Time Marches Backwards (1960) caveman days
  20. Quick Change Ollie (1960) middle ages via magic hen
  21. Camel Aires (1960) to ancient Egypt
  22. The Black Knight (1960) Arthurian times
  23. Have Time, Will Travel (1961) prehistoric

 Huck-huck-huck-huck. There ain’t no such thing as pirates, Olive. They’re only a fragamentation of the imagamentation. 

—Popeye and the Pirates




   Hairbreadth
by F.O. Alexander
First time travel: 29 Nov 1936

About midway (29 Nov 1936) through Franklin Osborne Alexander’s run with Charles Kahles’s character Hairbreadth Harry, the adventurer and his lady friend Belinda found themselves taken to the year 4936 by a magic hourglass where they are up against their arch-nemesis Relentless Rudolph Ruddigore Rassendale. I don’t know whether the characters and their hour glass had any other adventures in time.

 Harry! A mouse is in the trap and I haven’t the nerve to—OH!—you’ve knocked over the magic hour glass . . .! 


   “Trapped in Eternity”
by Ray Cummings
First publication: Thrilling Wonder Stories, Dec 1936

Alan Blair and his beautiful fiancée Dora are brought to the future by the lecherous Groat who cures her blindness and then proposes to start a new race with Dora.

   “Tryst in Time”
by C.L. Moore
First publication: Astounding, Dec 1936

Bold and bored soldier-of-fortune Eric Rosner meets a scientist who sends him skipping through time, always meeting the same beguiling girl with the smoke-blue eyes.

 I can transport you into the past, and you can create events there which never took place in the past we know—but the events are not new. They were ordained from the beginning, if you took that particular path. You are simply embarking upon a different path into a different future, a fixed and preordained future, yet one which will be strange to you because it lies outside your own layer of experience. So you have infinite freedom in all your actions, yet everything you can possibly do is already fixed in time. 



No Time Travel. Move along.
  “Pre-Vision” by John Pierce, Astounding, Mar 1936 [visions of possible futures ]

 

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)