Time Travel to the Past

[steepholm]

"What is the first example of a story in which people travel in time to the past?"

This question came up in a seminar today, and I was embarrassed not to be able to give a better answer. I couldn't think of any example from folklore. There are plenty of people who have an enchanted sleep and wake at some point in the far future - something that resembles time travel - but of course they never travel into the past that way. The only way of seeing (and perhaps conversing with) figures from the past is to summon their ghosts, or to visit the underworld.

H. G. Wells came to mind, of course, but neither in the "The Chronic Argonauts" (1888) nor in The Time Machine (1895) does the protagonist travel into the past of his own world. The most he does is to return to the present from his future travels.

It's been said that the first time-travel stories for children are Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill and Nesbit's The Story of the Amulet, both published in 1906. I'm inclined to award Nesbit the bays here, since Kipling's is really just a particularly fancy and extended example of ghost-summoning. But when Nesbit invented travel into the past for children, no doubt taking a hint from her friend Wells, whom she credits with a name-check, was she also inventing it tout court? I find it hard to believe.

I'm sure the SF buffs here will be able to put me straight.

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I suppose I should have guessed that Wiki would have an entry on it. It's more fun this way, though. :)

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

I read it in an undergrad English class on the history of science fiction, it is an odd book--you can tell it was written by an Anglican vicar--but definitely worth reading! (So is Blazing World, if you haven't yet--17th-century feminist sci fi!)

I think Veltman is probably the first, then--that one I haven't read, because it's in Russian, but I think I would like to!

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Yes, that Merlin is genius, really. Though I keep waiting for him to turn up on Doctor Who.

[heloise1415.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[heloise1415.livejournal.com]

It doesn't really develop a plot till part-way through - very episodic, though each individual episode can be very funny.

[katherine langrish (from livejournal.com)]

Yes - sorry! Not playing the game.

[owlfish]

The concept of progress develops in the 15th century, and the word's use in that sense as well.

Presumably Cordorcet contributes something important to the use or promulgation of the concept, but it was certainly widespread in Europe by then.

[owlfish]

I was wondering if the Spanish precursor to the Wells story featured traveling to the past via time machine - and it does! It only pushes it back by one year though.

Enreque Gaspar, El anacronopéte. 1887.

I am so pleased by the wikipedia summary of their travel, that I shall repost it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrique_Gaspar_y_Rimbau

In the first act, don Sindulfo explains his theory of time: it is the atmosphere that causes time as demonstrated by the conservation of food in hermetic cans. By flying fast against the rotation of Earth, the machine can "undo" the passing of days (a device often mistakenly thought to be used in the film Superman). They leave Paris, from the World's Fair of 1878, and travel to the Battle of Tetuán in 1860. Luis's troop of hussars, that Clarita expected would protect her against Sindulfo, has become children and disappear since they were not protected by the "fluid of inalterability". The machine departs, returning to Paris the day before they left, whereupon several 'rejuvenated' French girls disembark.
In the second act, they again travel into the past, seeking the secret of immortality, stopping at various moments in history, such as the Granada in 1492, where they recommend Queen Isabella to listen to a Genovese and Ravenna in 690 (to obtain provisions). They end up in Ho-nan, China in 220, where Sindulfo expected that he could force Clarita to marry him. The emperor Hien-ti shows the travellers that many inventions such as the printing press and iron ships were already known. Since his empress Sun-Che has just died, he offers to exchange Clarita for the secret of immortality. The empress had actually been buried alive by his husband and happens to be the original of a Chinese mummy Sindulfo had bought and brought into the machine. Thus, she becomes free and wants to marry Sindulfo. The characters have evolved, with Benjamín becoming obsessed with eternal life, don Sindulfo crazy with jealousy over Clarita, and Clarita in love with Captain Luis. Benjamín discovers that the disappearing hussars had reappeared again because their immortal spirits had not left the anacronópete and that Sindulfo's first wife was the same as the empress through metempsychosis. While they leave, Tsao Pi founds the Ouei dynasty.
In the third act, after a stop in Pompeii at the time of Vesuvius' eruption in the year 79, they arrive in the 30th century BCE, the time of Noah. There they discover the secret of eternal life is God. Finally, don Sindulfo in his madness speeds up the anacronopede, which explodes upon arriving at the Day of Creation.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Looking through the OED citations, my impression is that the concept of progress becomes increasingly detached from any particular endeavour ("Having made no farther progress in his Business"), gradually assuming the character of a principle of the world/history in general.

[owlfish]

I just checked Wikipedia article on the time travel novel which came out in Spanish the year before Wells'. The summary features this sentence which may be of interest to you (i.e. strange_complex) in particular:

"In the third act, after a stop in Pompeii at the time of Vesuvius' eruption in the year 79, they arrive in the 30th century BCE, the time of Noah."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrique_Gaspar_y_Rimbau

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That is indeed very pleasing.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

All the stories mentioned in this thread sound fab, but yes - it is particularly nice to learn that Pompeii makes such an early appearance in the genre!

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Also, just a little later (http://www.wayoflife.org/index_files/ignatius_of_loyola.html), Loyola was directing Catholics to imagine themselves in events from the Bible.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thank you - that's a great example. (And it's almost as interesting to read the American Baptist on such imaginative exercises as heretical.)

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

That´s so ...marblellous...

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

In that case, does the episode of the Ghost of Christmas Past count?

[thinkum]

I, for one, am glad you couldn't think of a better answer, because it means we got this long conversation in the comments about all sorts of interesting things I haven't read yet, and now know about. :-)

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Hm, I simply looked up "Time Travel" as I´d probably do with any Q. I don´t know the A. to from memory and/or immediately. Gobbledygooking is a sin, yes?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I quite agree!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I think I should have mentioned dreams and visions of the past along with ghost summoning and underworld tourism as traditional methods. Whether any of them count as time travel depends I suppose on how we set up the rules.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

A dispute as old as any and a matter of definitions to start going backward with;

What is the oldest published dispute about the oldest time travel story?

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

I have a picture. The book is available on archive.org (https://archive.org/details/elanacronpete00gaspgoog).

(https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/GDMGBhvGObUnuZAqDFhV_tMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

A practical design if ever I saw one!

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

There is a list of nineteenth-century time travel stories here, with links to many of them. Or, for the complete list, up until the latest issue of Analog, try this link on the same site.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a pretty venomous piece. Those awful, awful Catholics! And God forbid (literally, I guess) that we should engage in "interfaith dialogue."