Turns out a little-know Spanish writer wrote the first time travelling (that used a time machine) story at least 7 years before HG Wells.

The HG Wells tale of a Victorian gentleman who voyaged through time on a time machine of his own invention was the one that captured the public’s imagination - but it was not the first of its kind.

It may surprise science fiction fans to learn that it was a little-known Spanish playwright who gave birth to the idea of time travel via a mechanical contraption.

But Enrique Gaspar’s hour may have finally come - his re-discovered novel will feature as one of the highlights of the British Library’s first ever science fiction exhibition next month.

And, thanks largely to the persistence of Spanish science fiction fans, El Anacronopete will be translated into English for the first time, as The Time Ship: A Chrononautical Journey, next year.

The novel was published in Spain in 1887, beating HG Wells’ The Time Machine into print by more than seven years.
Time travel

“This does seem to be the first literary description of a time machine noted so far,” says Andy Sawyer, librarian of the Science Fiction Foundation Library at the University of Liverpool, and one of the curators of the British Library exhibition.

“There are, of course, much earlier descriptions of travelling through time - usually in a dream, but occasionally by some kind of magic.

“Edward Page Mitchell’s story The Clock That Went Backward (1881) is usually described as the first time-machine story, but I’m not sure that a clock quite counts.”

More at link.

I don’t know that this was true either.  Biblical stories have Jesus moving instantly from one place to another or through time, and the Book of Ezekiel is plump with descriptions that would indicate time travel or instant one on top of the other happenings as well as abduction. 

I am given to believe both authors may well have taken their ideas from those suggested by the Bible.

hulitoons - 17 April 2011 02:24 PM

I don’t know that this was true either.  Biblical stories have Jesus moving instantly from one place to another or through time, and the Book of Ezekiel is plump with descriptions that would indicate time travel or instant one on top of the other happenings as well as abduction. 

I am given to believe both authors may well have taken their ideas from those suggested by the Bible.

But in those cases, it was always magic or divine intervention.  This is about cases where some ordinary person built a device that uses the natural physical laws of the universe to travel through time.  In earlier stories, even when there was some object used to travel it was because the object was magically charmed (a magical sword or shoes or whatever).

The idea of travel through time goes back further than any known writing does (some of the early Hindu religious stories, for example).

Yeah, this is supposed to be the first example of applying science with the intent to travel though time.  The first ‘Time Machine’ as opposed to “I just fell asleep and woke up elsewhen!”  Man’s ability to conquer time himself.

Accipiter - 17 April 2011 04:11 PM

hulitoons - 17 April 2011 02:24 PM

I don’t know that this was true either.  Biblical stories have Jesus moving instantly from one place to another or through time, and the Book of Ezekiel is plump with descriptions that would indicate time travel or instant one on top of the other happenings as well as abduction. 

I am given to believe both authors may well have taken their ideas from those suggested by the Bible.

But in those cases, it was always magic or divine intervention.  This is about cases where some ordinary person built a device that uses the natural physical laws of the universe to travel through time.  In earlier stories, even when there was some object used to travel it was because the object was magically charmed (a magical sword or shoes or whatever).

The idea of travel through time goes back further than any known writing does (some of the early Hindu religious stories, for example).

Some of the best sci-fi stories are in the ancient Hindu religious writings. They speak of what could eaily be described as lasers, spacecraft, nuclear bombs, etc.  Epic is the only word that really applies to those tales.

(And Huli, I’m gonna have to ask for references on the “moving instantly” thing in the New Testament.  I know that from what I’ve read Jesus and his followers moved around in “High-Speed-Boogie” mode a lot, but traveling 20-odd miles in one day, on foot, isn’t all that hard to imagine or reconcile.  (And it doesn’t really help that in many cases we can only guess at where the towns.locations being mentioned were at the time.)) 😉

http://prayersthatmatter.blogspot.com/2007/08/while-reading-about-padre-pio-for.html

...........................It is interesting to note that the doctrine of bilocation begins with Jesus himself in the Eucharist. He is sacramentally present (His double if you will) among the faithful and he reigns in the heavenly realm. If you would like to read more about bilocation the Catholic Encyclopedia can be of help.

BIBLICAL BILOCATION via GOOGLE

Eh, the Eucharist isn’t really bilocation, it’s more a case of Jesus being an aspect of an omnipresent God.  He’s already here and there and everywhere, you’re just formally acknowledging Jesus’ presence at that one particular time and place.  And, in the case of Roman Catholics or the eastern churches, eating tasty chunks of him.

But yes, the old Christian hagiographies are, by definition, full of all sorts of miraculous things.  And plenty of those things could be explained by time travel.  (Of course, they could be equally well explained by the author having picked the wrong sort of mushrooms in the forest before retiring to his cell to write.)