# Earliest SF about parallel Earths? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 24, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079 "2017-01-24T22:14:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2017, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/1 "2017-01-24T22:14:07Z")
What’s the earliest science fiction story in which a person encountered a duplicate of him/herself (or of someone they knew) from a parallel Earth? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2017, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/2 "2017-01-24T22:41:53Z")
Until someone more knowledgeable comes along… The [Science Fiction Encyclopedia](http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/doppelgangers) notes that > [@](#): > > Apparent doppelgangers may also be found in Parallel Worlds – as in Keith Laumer’s [Worlds of the Imperium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds_of_the_Imperium) (1962 So, anybody got anything earlier than 1962? (Duplicates and parallel worlds certainly predate this individually, but I assume you’re looking for the combination.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2017, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/3 "2017-01-25T00:08:40Z")
> [@Cartoonacy](#): > > What’s the earliest science fiction story in which a person encountered a duplicate of him/herself (or of someone they knew) from a parallel Earth? In 1944, Mandrake the Magician met his evil counterpart from the mirror realm. _“You forget I am your counterpart, Mandrake. I am as great a hypnotist as yourself!”_ ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2017, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/4 "2017-01-25T00:48:29Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Until someone more knowledgeable comes along… > > The [Science Fiction Encyclopedia](http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/doppelgangers) notes that So, anybody got anything earlier than 1962? (Duplicates and parallel worlds certainly predate this individually, but I assume you’re looking for the combination.) Well, there’s the classic _Flash of Two Worlds_ story from 1961, in which DC Comics established their version of a multiverse of parallel worlds with slight differences, created as a way to explain the distinction between the characters published during World War II and the revamped “silver-age” versions (typically with the same superhero names and general abilities, but differing origins, costumes and secret identities) they started publishing in 1956. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2017, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/5 "2017-01-25T01:53:37Z")
There’s a great number of stories, cartoons and movies about a “Counter-Earth”, orbiting the Sun in exact sync with the Earth so that it is always on the other side of the Sun. In many of these stories, Counter-Earth is inhabited by humans with similar culture to Earth. The earliest of the Counter-Earth stories seem to be from the 1920s. > **[Fictional planets of the Solar System | Counter-Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictional_planets_of_the_Solar_System#Counter-Earth)** > > Counter-Earth was a hypothetical planet sharing an orbit with Earth, but on the opposite side of the Sun (hence Earth and Counter-Earth would always be invisible to each other). The idea of a counter-Earth has never been a serious scientific hypothesis in modern times. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2017, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/6 "2017-01-25T02:33:20Z")
“Sidewise in Time” by Murray Leinster has got that beat by several decades first appearing in 1934. (Still a good read today.) > **[Sidewise in Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidewise_in_Time)** > > "Sidewise in Time" is a science fiction short story by American writer Murray Leinster that was first published in the June 1934 issue of Astounding Stories. "Sidewise in Time" served as the title story for Leinster's second story collection in 1950. > The Sidewise Award for Alternate History, established in 1995 to recognize the best alternate history stories and novels of the year, was named in honor of "Sidewise in Time". > Professor Minott is a mathematician at Robinson College in Fredericksbu... BTW, the most realistic portrayal of the internet appeared in Leinster’s “A Logic Named Joe” published in 1946. Predicted most aspects of the same but probably not “The Straight Dope”. Check it out if you want to be awestruck. ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2017, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/7 "2017-01-25T18:43:46Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > “Sidewise in Time” by Murray Leinster has got that beat by several decades first appearing in 1934. (Still a good read today.) > > [Sidewise in Time - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidewise_in_Time) > > BTW, the most realistic portrayal of the internet appeared in Leinster’s “A Logic Named Joe” published in 1946. Predicted most aspects of the same but probably not “The Straight Dope”. Check it out if you want to be awestruck. “Sidewise in Time” sounds like an interesting story that I’d like to read (I love Leinster, and “A Logic Named Joe” is one of my favorites), but the Wiki description doesn’t sound like it involved counterparts of the same people on both Earths. “Flash of Two Worlds” is what started the conversation. Someone asked me if that was the earliest example of parallel Earth counterparts in fiction. I know it wasn’t, but I couldn’t think of any earlier ones. I found that, in comics at least, there was an earlier story in Wonder Woman #59 (May 1953) in which Wonder Woman met a mirror-world duplicate of herself. But so far, it sounds like The Other Waldo Pepper’s Mandrake story is the earliest one that meets the criteria of being about a doppelganger from a parallel Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2017, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/8 "2017-01-25T18:58:52Z")
I would guess that as soon as Sci Fi writers heard the term “Anti Matter” they wrote a story about an “Anti Matter Universe” so when was Anti Matter conceived as a theory? ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2017, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/9 "2017-01-25T19:26:24Z")
There’s a story far earlier than any of these. In the [Yoga Vasistha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga_Vasistha), a Sanskrit text which dates from (according to various estimates) “as early as the sixth or seventh century CE, to as late as the fourteenth century”, you’ll find _The Story of Lila_. Lila visits various parallel universes, and universes within universes, with significant differences, and meets another version of herself. The two versions then get together and have further adventures. Actually the story is so intricate and has so many twists and turns, different realities, time compressions, etc. that it’s difficult to summarize. Well worth reading. _“There are countless universes which do not know of one another’s existence.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2017, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/10 "2017-01-25T21:47:09Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > I would guess that as soon as Sci Fi writers heard the term “Anti Matter” they wrote a story about an “Anti Matter Universe” so when was Anti Matter conceived as a theory? Before scientists settled on antimatter, some called it “contraterrene” matter - and SF writers picked up that term. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2017, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/11 "2017-01-25T22:36:27Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Well, there’s the classic _Flash of Two Worlds_ story from 1961, in which DC Comics established their version of a multiverse of parallel worlds with slight differences, created as a way to explain the distinction between the characters published during World War II and the revamped “silver-age” versions (typically with the same superhero names and general abilities, but differing origins, costumes and secret identities) they started publishing in 1956. Trivia: the first mention of a “DC multiverse” (i.e., parallel Earths with alternate versions of the same person) was not “the Flash of Two Earths”. It was actually a [Wonder Woman story](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse_(DC_Comics)#Golden_Age) from 1953. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/12 "2017-01-26T15:02:47Z")
Don Draper wrote; "Trivia: the first mention of a “DC multiverse” (i.e., parallel Earths with alternate versions of the same person) was not “the Flash of Two Earths”. It was actually a Wonder Woman story from 1953. " If that’s the story I’m thinking of the villain from that one has been retconned into being the Legion foe “The Time Trapper”. Missed the reference in the OP about people meeting themselves. Maybe a story almost as old would qualify but it’s been a long time since I read it. “The Worlds of If” by Weinbaum, I think it was. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/13 "2017-01-26T17:46:55Z")
Whoops. Bit of a brain fart there. This is the story I was thinking of. > **[The Wheels of If](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheels_of_If)** > > "The Wheels of If" is an alternate history science fiction story by American writer L. Sprague de Camp. It was first published in the magazine Unknown Fantasy Fiction for October, 1940, and first appeared in book form in de Camp's collection The Wheels of If and Other Science Fiction (Shasta, 1940). It later appeared in the paperback edition of the collection published by Berkley Books in 1970, in de Camp's subsequent collections The Virgin & the Wheels (Popular Library, 1976) and Yea New York la... By DeCamp, not Weinbaum. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/14 "2017-01-26T18:47:27Z")
Out of curiosity, would IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE count? (What about Scrooge seeing his possible-future funeral in a world minus Tiny Tim?) ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/15 "2017-01-26T19:02:18Z")
although I hate to call them sci fi weren’t the gor books wrote in the 30s? ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2017, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/16 "2017-01-26T19:27:22Z")
^^No. 1970s thru ~1990 or so. Then a couple of sporadic books here and there. The author John Frederick Lange is still living, too. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2017, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/earliest-sf-about-parallel-earths/778079/17 "2017-01-27T19:12:35Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Don Draper wrote; "Trivia: the first mention of a “DC multiverse” (i.e., parallel Earths with alternate versions of the same person) was not “the Flash of Two Earths”. It was actually a Wonder Woman story from 1953. " If that’s the story I’m thinking of the villain from that one has been retconned into being the Legion foe “The Time Trapper”. > > Missed the reference in the OP about people meeting themselves. Maybe a story almost as old would qualify but it’s been a long time since I read it. “The Worlds of If” by Weinbaum, I think it was. No I didn’t. From the wikipedia article I linked to: > [@](#): > > she meets Tara Terruna who is exactly like her. Tara Terruna means “Wonder Woman” in the native language of that world.