The Clock That Went Backward
The Clock That Went Backward is a short story by the American writer and editor Edward Page Mitchell, published anonymously for the first time in September 1881 in The Sun magazine . It is the first known story of a (fictional) journey through time using a time machine (the backwards clock of the title) as well as the first description of a time paradox .
action
Towards the end of the 19th century, two brothers in Maine experience how their old aunt Gertrude, whose family history begins in the Dutch city of Leiden , winds her extremely old watch, whose hands have never moved, but now do - only backwards. She acts strangely and finally dies with a sharp scream, but still manages to bring the hands of the clock back to their old position: a quarter past three.
The first-person narrator now inherits practically her entire fortune, while his brother Harry, who was actually her favorite, only receives the old watch. The clock, built centuries ago in Leyden by the clockmaker Jan Lipperdam, still does not work. Nevertheless, the brothers take her to Leiden, where, according to the provisions of their aunt's will, they are to attend university. There, too, all efforts to repair the mechanism remain in vain. But the two brothers begin to be very interested in the history of the city. They befriend the philosophy professor Van Stopp, who bears a certain resemblance to her late aunt. He brings you closer to the story of the siege of the city by the Spaniards, during which the Walloons tried to invade the city unnoticed but were prevented from doing so by an unknown hero.
One evening, in the brothers' apartment, they tell Professor Stop by the clock; he indicates that only a weary mind would deny the possibility of time flowing contrary to the conventional current, and winds the clock.
Suddenly the three find themselves in a city shaken by thunder; on the streets people are demanding surrender to the Spaniards in order not to starve. The mayor, they say, has easy talk with his demand to wait for help that may be coming. He has a cellar full of groceries. In the crowd, his daughter takes the floor, rejects these accusations and calls the speaker a Spanish spy; he attacks her, but Harry comes to her aid.
Now the mayor gives a speech against giving up; with the coming wind the helping fleet will come. You look into the distance, hoping for a sign. Towards morning an explosion shook the city. You race there and find that resistance has already been organized. Harry is the unknown hero who was able to prevent the unnoticed intrusion; and on the barricades is Professor Stopp alias Jan Lipperdam. The mayor meets Harry as the savior of his daughter and the city. The first-person narrator urges Harry to come back to her apartment with him, but Harry refuses.
A few days later the first-person narrator is back in Leyden from the late 19th century, where he only shares his apartment with Aunt Gertrude's old clock.
influence
This first time travel story with a (more or less) technical aid naturally raised the question of whether HG Wells, normally referred to as the father of modern time travel novels, was familiar with them; The history of literature still owes us an answer. It is undisputed that through the family entanglements of his protagonists (the brother of the first-person narrator becomes one of his ancestors) he also described basic components of the time travel genre for the first time, which later became very popular in the Back to the Future series , for example .