Déjà vu all over again

[steepholm]

I remember asking this once here before, but it was in passing in a long and rambling post about something else, so I wasn't surprised that no one answered. Anyway, I'm still wondering what was the very first story (book, film, whatever) that used the device of someone going back in time (probably multiple times) to correct some misdeed, make good some omission, prevent some accident, etc.

The earliest example I can think of is Groundhog Day - but I really find it hard to believe that no enterprising SF writer had tried something similar before 1993. It seems a kind of obvious device - but maybe only in retrospect?

Anime seems particularly rich in examples: off the top of my head, there's Madoka Magica, Steins;Gate, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and now (which is what put it in my head again) the recent series Erased (aka Boku Dake Ga Nai Machi) - which I'm about halfway through and very much enjoying.

Anyway, I feel sure I'm missing some obvious earlier examples, or simply showing my lamentable ignorance of them. Feel free to put me right!

Comments

[the_rck]

Well, I used it as a plot device in a one shot LARP back in 1987 or 1988. I don't remember if I cribbed it from anywhere else, though, as it's been a very long time. That particular character kept kind of looping as I gave him new character sheets with different backstories and goals because, no matter what he changed, his life was always messed up and it was always because of events at the time of the game.

I reused the character a few times in other games because it's very useful for balancing out parts of the game that have gotten out of hand or slow. I usually throw in time cops, too, who are trying to stop him/her, but I have to pick players who can handle facing an unwinnable scenario because the entire point of the time traveler is that he will never, ever stop. He may start going to a different time period to mess with different events, but short of finding his parents and making sure he's never born, there's not a lot to do about him.

My husband says that J.P. Hogan wrote a short story that did this. He can't remember the title at the moment but will try to remember to look it up after dinner.

[the_rck]

Thrice Upon a Time, a novel by J.P. Hogan, had information traveling back in time but not people.

Scott thinks the short story was in an anthology called Minds, Machines, and Evolution and that it might be the one called Assassin. We'd have to find the book which is in a tub in the basement in order to be sure. Wikipedia says Assassin was published in 1978.

[the_rck]

Oh, and I just remembered reading this review at Tor's website last week. It involves a lot of time travel in an attempt to alter history, but it also sounds like a really and truly dreadful book.

[steepholm]

Thank you. There's a lot of it about, it seems!

[thistleingrey]

How about Mary Tannen's Wizard Children of Finn and Lost Legend of Finn, 1981–82? Post is locked, but you should be able to see.

If we can push the line backwards a decade at a time, there must be other works.

[steepholm]

Thank you for the link! The LJ version of this post has some earlier suggestions in the comments. It seems to go back to the '70s, '50s or '30s, depending how far you want to stretch the definition.

[thistleingrey]

Thank you for the pointer, in turn!

[kalypso]

Well, as far as I remember they didn't come back multiple times, but the first thing that comes into my mind is Day of the Daleks (1972), in which time travellers are trying to carry out an assassination which they believe will prevent a future Dalek invasion of Earth (but naturally the Doctor works out that it was their intervention that led to the invasion).

[steepholm]

naturally the Doctor works out that it was their intervention that led to the invasion

Tsk. Isn't that always the way?

[kalypso]

It's like trying to cheat the Delphic oracle.