Bradbury first to imagine past altering future?

Cafe Society
1

Was Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder” the first literary work that presented the idea that altering an event in the past would affect the future?

2

According to Andy’s Anachronisms Andy's Anachronisms -- Time Travel Reviews
Other Tracks by William Sell published in 1938

There are probably other examples.

3

Wow! Thanks for the cite.

In 1938, altering the timeline ultimately results in a positive outcome for two inventor/entrepreneurs. In 1952, it results in a fascist society, and the guy who causes it is a thrill-seeker. I think there’s a doctoral thesis in there somewhere.

4

Damn, that’s a brilliant idea! When I get a time machine, I’m going to do something like this!

5

Sorry. I already have.

6

It’s not exactly like the time we made sure Queen Victoria didn’t get an atomic bomb, but it is close. That time we just made sure Hilderbrandt *didn’t *discover radium, and the rest fell into place.

7

I went back and arranged for Harold the Saxon to be killed in 1066, but not much changed (except the @ is not called the appersat as it used to be).

8

Just nobody screw up the election of President Gore in 2000, is all I ask.

9

Just had to post this: http://www.abyssandapex.com/200710-wikihistory.html

10

I wish! If he’d assassinated Hitler at the opening of the 1936 Olympic games, Valkyrie wouldn’t have been inflicted upon us. :smiley:

11

I believe that Heinlein’s short story, “By His Bootstraps” should be mentioned here even though it’s not the first published.

Also, even though this is a question that has a factual answer, I think it really belongs in Cafe Society. So here we go…

12

It’s been quite a while since I read Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court. I remember that the Yankee certainly did succeed at constructing a working telephone system in Camelot. Without spoiling the end of the story for those who have not yet read it, I’ll just say that while the great majority of what he did was lost, I don’t remember whether or not there might have been one or two small ways that history got changed.

If something did survive, then although it is not as substantial as the other examples mentioned in this thread, it is certainly the oldest.

13

“THE CHRONIC ARGONAUTS” by H. G. Wells had the first Time Machine I know of. It was published in 1888 one year before “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” in fact. I would have to read it again, but I thought there was some minor changes in time even in this early story.

14

Well the example I have is a lot earlier than that William Sale story, but Sale’ s sound great so I’m definitely looking forward to reading that.

No my example is a kid’s book from 1906 by E. Nesbit called “The Story of the Amulet”. A group of kids travel to different times and places in search of an amulet (and see it in various stages from in Atlantis, Ancient Egypt, even the future). I remember at least one point where they talk about England with Julius Caesar and then later discuss how they changed things by convincing him to invade Britain. I think there was at least one other such type of thing in there, but I’m not sure. Certainly the earliest type of that occurrence I’ve ever heard…

15

Oops.

I mean, damnit, you should have going to say something!