Editing Time travel (section)

=== Science fiction ===
{{further|Time travel in fiction}}

Time travel themes in [[science fiction]] and the media can be grouped into three categories: immutable timeline; mutable timeline; and alternate histories, as in the interacting-[[many-worlds interpretation]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Grey |first=William |title=Troubles with Time Travel |journal=Philosophy |volume=74 |issue=1 |pages=55–70 |year=1999 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/S0031819199001047|s2cid=170218026  |issn = 0031-8191}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Rickman |first=Gregg |title=The Science Fiction Film Reader |publisher=Limelight Editions |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-87910-994-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780879109943}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Schneider |first=Susan |title=Science Fiction and Philosophy: From Time Travel to Superintelligence |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-4051-4907-5}}</ref> The non-scientific term 'timeline' is often used to refer to all physical events in history, so that where events are changed, the time traveler is described as creating a new timeline.<ref name="Prucher">{{Cite book|last=Prucher|first=Jeff|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iYzi8m8FbEsC&pg=PA230|title=Brave new words|isbn=978-0-19-530567-8|language=en|access-date=2022-12-29|archive-date=2023-03-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324181802/https://books.google.com/books?id=iYzi8m8FbEsC&pg=PA230|url-status=live}}</ref>

Early science fiction stories feature characters who sleep for years and awaken in a changed society, or are transported to the past through supernatural means. Among them ''[[The Year 2440|L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fût jamais]]'' (''The Year 2440: A Dream If Ever There Was One'', 1770) by [[Louis-Sébastien Mercier]], ''[[Rip Van Winkle]]'' (1819) by [[Washington Irving]], ''[[Looking Backward]]'' (1888) by [[Edward Bellamy]], and ''[[The Sleeper Awakes|When the Sleeper Awakes]]'' (1899) by H. G. Wells. Prolonged sleep is used as a means of time travel in these stories.<ref>{{citation|title=The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature|chapter=Utopia, dystopia, and science fiction|author=Peter Fitting|editor=Gregory Claeys|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2010|pages=138–139}}</ref> 

The date of the earliest work about backwards time travel is uncertain. The Chinese novel ''[[A Supplement to the Journey to the West]]'' ({{Circa|1640}}) by Dong Yue features magical mirrors and jade gateways that connect various points in time. The protagonist [[Sun Wukong]] travels back in time to the "World of the Ancients" ([[Qin dynasty]]) to retrieve a magical bell and then travels forward to the "World of the Future" ([[Song dynasty]]) to find an emperor who has been exiled in time. However, the time travel is taking place inside an illusory dream world created by the villain to distract and entrap him.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Dong |first1=Yue |translator-first1=Shuen-fu |translator-last1=Lin |translator-first2=Larry James |translator-last2=Schulz |first2=Chengẻn |last2=Wu| title=The Tower of Myriad Mirrors: A Supplement to Journey to the West |series=Michigan classics in Chinese studies |location=Ann Arbor |publisher=Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan |isbn=9780892641420 |year=2000 |edition=2nd }}</ref> [[Samuel Madden (author)|Samuel Madden]]'s ''[[Memoirs of the Twentieth Century]]'' (1733) is a series of letters from British ambassadors in 1997 and 1998 to diplomats in the past, conveying the political and religious conditions of the future.<ref name="madden">{{cite book|last=Alkon|first=Paul K.|title=Origins of Futuristic Fiction|publisher=The University of Georgia Press|year=1987|isbn=978-0-8203-0932-3|url=https://archive.org/details/originsoffuturis00alko}}</ref>{{rp|95–96}} Because the narrator receives these letters from his [[guardian angel]], Paul Alkon suggests in his book ''Origins of Futuristic Fiction'' that "the first time-traveler in English literature is a guardian angel".<ref name="madden" />{{rp|85}} Madden does not explain how the angel obtains these documents, but Alkon asserts that Madden "deserves recognition as the first to toy with the rich idea of time-travel in the form of an artifact sent backward from the future to be discovered in the present".<ref name="madden"/>{{rp|95–96}} In the science fiction anthology ''Far Boundaries'' (1951), editor [[August Derleth]] claims that an early short story about time travel is ''An Anachronism; or, Missing One's Coach'', written for the ''Dublin Literary Magazine''<ref>{{cite journal|title=An Anachronism; or, Missing One's Coach|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jfPAwAnj9JUC&pg=RA4-PA701|date=June 1838|journal=Dublin University Magazine|volume=11|access-date=2022-05-11|archive-date=2023-03-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324181751/https://books.google.com/books?id=jfPAwAnj9JUC&pg=RA4-PA701|url-status=live}}</ref> by an anonymous author in the [https://books.google.com/books?id=jfPAwAnj9JUC&pg=RA4-PA665 June 1838 issue].<ref name="derleth">{{cite book|last=Derleth|first=August|author-link=August Derleth|title=Far Boundaries|publisher=Pellegrini & Cudahy|year=1951}}</ref>{{rp|3}} While the narrator waits under a tree for a [[Stagecoach|coach]] to take him out of [[Newcastle upon Tyne]], he is transported back in time over a thousand years. He encounters the Venerable [[Bede]] in a [[monastery]] and explains to him the developments of the coming centuries. However, the story never makes it clear whether these events are real or a dream.<ref name="derleth" />{{rp|11–38}} Another early work about time travel is ''The Forebears of Kalimeros: Alexander, son of Philip of Macedon'' by [[Alexander Veltman]] published in 1836.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Lib.ru/Классика: Акутин Юрий. Александр Вельтман и его роман "Странник"|url=http://az.lib.ru/w/welxtman_a_f/text_0090.shtml|access-date=2022-12-29|website=az.lib.ru|archive-date=2011-06-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606034550/http://az.lib.ru/w/welxtman_a_f/text_0090.shtml|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[File:A Christmas Carol - Mr. Fezziwig's Ball.jpg|thumb|Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig dance in a vision shown to Scrooge by the [[Ghost of Christmas Past]].]] [[Charles Dickens]]'s ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'' (1843) has early depictions of mystical time travel in both directions, as the protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge, is transported to Christmases past and future. Other stories employ the same template, where a character naturally goes to sleep, and upon waking up finds themself in a different time.<ref name="Scrooge">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.towson.edu/~flynn/timetv.html|title=Time Travel Literature|access-date=October 28, 2006|author=Flynn, John L.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060929071327/http://www.towson.edu/~flynn/timetv.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive -->|archive-date=September 29, 2006|year=1995|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia Galactica}}</ref> A clearer example of backward time travel is found in the 1861 book ''Paris avant les hommes'' (''Paris before Men'') by the French botanist and geologist [[Pierre Boitard]], published posthumously. In this story, the protagonist is transported to the prehistoric past by the magic of a "lame demon" (a French pun on Boitard's name), where he encounters a [[Plesiosauria|Plesiosaur]] and an apelike ancestor and is able to interact with ancient creatures.<ref name="boitard">{{cite book|last=Rudwick|first=Martin J. S.|title=Scenes From Deep Time|publisher=The University of Chicago Press|year=1992|pages=166–169|isbn=978-0-226-73105-6}}</ref> [[Edward Everett Hale]]'s "Hands Off" (1881)<ref>{{cite book|title=Hands Off|last=Hale|first=Edward Everett|publisher=J. Stilman Smith & Co.|year=1895|url=https://archive.org/details/handsoff00halegoog/mode/2up}}</ref> tells the story of an unnamed being, possibly the soul of a person who has recently died, who interferes with ancient Egyptian history by preventing [[Joseph (Genesis)|Joseph]]'s enslavement. This may have been the first story to feature an [[alternate history]] created as a result of time travel.<ref name="Nahin2001" >{{cite book|last=Nahin|first=Paul J.|title=Time machines: time travel in physics, metaphysics, and science fiction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=39KQY1FnSfkC&pg=PA54|publisher=Springer|year=2001|isbn=978-0-387-98571-8|access-date=2020-10-20|archive-date=2023-03-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324181758/https://books.google.com/books?id=39KQY1FnSfkC&pg=PA54|url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|54}}