The fascinating obscurity of Edward Page Mitchell

I recently reread H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine (which, upon rereading is an amazingly cozy work) and decided to look up if it really was the first time machine story. (I knew it wasn’t the first time travel story)

I was vaguely aware that the Spanish writer Enrique Gaspar had written about time machines before Wells but I learned that American journalist Edward Page Mitchell is considered the first with ‘The Clock That Went Backwards’ in 1881.

And that was an interesting rabbit hole to go down.

Edward Page Mitchell (1852 - 1926) was a journalist who also wrote science fiction (and apparently horror and fantasy) He wrote about using science to make someone invisible and time machines before Wells did. He also wrote about faster-than-light travel.

And, from what I can tell, he was fascinatingly _not_ influential.

Almost all of his science fiction was published in the New York newspaper the Sun and anonymously at that. It would be around ninety years before it would be republished. It is not unreasonable to assume that Gaspar or Wells would have never read it.

In fact, it’s amazing that he was rediscovered at all.

After finding this out, I went and read ‘The Clock That Went Backwards’

First of all, I think calling the titular clock a time machine is a stretch. While there are discussions about science and how the 16th century clock maker knew secrets that later generations hadn’t figured out yet, there’s never any science explanation. It’s basically magic as far as the narrative is concerned.

Second, the story _does_ deal with paradox. When the narrator and his cousin go back in time, his cousin plays a key role in Dutch history and stays to become his own great, great , great, etc grand uncle. And it might be the earliest (certainly one of the earliest) examples of that. Man, he beat Heinlein’s ‘By His Bootstraps’ by over fifty years!

Third, it is very readable. I was prepared for purple prose but even the parts where the story is lecturing us (and one of the characters is a college professor so lectures fit in) are clear. Now, Wikipedia says that the story was written as a story for boys. It is more of an adventure story. Both of those elements could explain the more plain writing style. But I’ve read my share of pulp fiction and Mitchell does better than a lot of it. And I hate the argument that true art has to be confusing and difficult.

I don’t think you can argue that Mitchell was a secret major influence on science fiction. People would have needed access to his work for that to have been the case. But I do think you can argue that he should have been. If ‘The Clock That Went Backward’ is any example, he would have been huge if people could have read his work.

And, having had one good experience, I do want to read more of his work. It’s not a question of his place in history. It’s the quality of his writing.