Editing By His Bootstraps (section)

{{Short description|1941 science fiction novella by Robert A. Heinlein}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox short story | <!-- See [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels]] or [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Books]] -->
| name          = By His Bootstraps
| title_orig    = 
| translator    = 
| image         =  [[File:By His Bootstraps ASF Oct 1941.jpg|200px]]
| author        = [[Robert A. Heinlein]] as Anson MacDonald
| country       = 
| language      = [[English language|English]]
| series        = 
| genre         = [[Science fiction]]
| published_in  = ''Astounding Science Fiction''
| publisher     = 
| media_type    = Magazine
| pub_date      = October 1941
| german_pub_date = 
| preceded_by   = 
| followed_by   = 
}}

"'''By His Bootstraps'''" is a 20,000 word [[science fiction]] [[novella]] by American writer [[Robert A. Heinlein]]. It plays with some of the inherent [[paradox]]es that would be caused by [[time travel]].

The story was published in the October 1941 issue of ''[[Astounding (magazine)|Astounding Science Fiction]]'' under the [[pen name]] Anson MacDonald; the same issue has "[[Common Sense (short story by Robert Heinlein)|Common Sense]]" under Heinlein's name.<ref name="astounding194110contents">{{Cite magazine |date=October 1941 |title=Contents |url=https://archive.org/stream/Astounding_v28n02_1941-10#page/n3/mode/2up |magazine=Astounding Science Fiction |page=5}}</ref> "By His Bootstraps" was reprinted in Heinlein's 1959 collection ''[[The Menace from Earth (short story collection)|The Menace From Earth]]'', and in several subsequent anthologies,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20150112215855/http://www.heinleinarchives.net/upload/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=27 heinleinarchives.net]</ref> and is now available in at least two audio editions. Under the title "The Time Gate", it was also included in a 1958 Crest paperback anthology, ''Race to the Stars''.