"The Clock That Went Backward" is a fantasy short story by American writer
Edward Page Mitchell
Edward Page Mitchell (1852–1927) was an American editorial and short story writer for ''The Sun'', a daily newspaper in New York City. He became that newspaper's editor in 1897, succeeding Charles Anderson Dana. Mitchell was recognized as a m ...
.
Plot
The narrator recalls his visiting his great-aunt Gertrude in Maine, alongside his cousin Harry. Gertrude frequently related her family history, dating back to her great-great-grandmother who migrated from
Leiden
Leiden ( ; ; in English language, English and Archaism, archaic Dutch language, Dutch also Leyden) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Nethe ...
to
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony (sometimes spelled Plimouth) was the first permanent English colony in New England from 1620 and the third permanent English colony in America, after Newfoundland and the Jamestown Colony. It was settled by the passengers on t ...
with "a
Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...
refugee" in 1632. The boys grew skeptical of these stories, and imagined that she was old enough to have personally lived out the adventures ascribed to her ancestors.
Gertrude owned a Dutch clock, crafted by Jan Lipperdam in 1572, which had been stopped at a quarter past three for as long as the boys could remember. She claimed the clock had not worked since it had been struck by lightning, and resisted all efforts by the boys to confirm the extent of the damage or attempt repairs. One night, the boys discovered Gertrude winding the clock, causing it to run backwards. She briefly spoke to the clock until it stopped. Distraught, she turned the clock back to 3:15, then fell to the floor and died. In her will, Gertrude bequeathed her estate to the narrator, while Harry received only the clock.
The boys attend
Leiden University
Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange as a Protestantism, Protestant institution, it holds the d ...
, as specified in the will, and bring the clock with them. The narrator's philosophy teacher, Professor Van Stopp, bonds with the boys over their interest in Dutch history. During a tour of historical sites, they visit a place where the city wall was breached on the last night of the 1574
siege of Leiden. The professor is intrigued when Harry recognizes the importance of the person who identified the breach in time to mount a defense. If not for this defender, Van Stopp argues, Spain would have crushed the
Dutch Revolt
The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt (; 1566/1568–1648) was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Reformation, centralisation, exc ...
, and the "birth of religious liberty and self-government by the people" could have been delayed.
During the boys' third year, Van Stopp visits them at their rooms on Breestraat and inquires about the clock. He is amused by the notion that it only runs backward. Citing
Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...
's concept of ''
Aufhebung'', he suggests that the sequence of past, present, and future is arbitrary. As a storm gathers, Van Stopp winds the clock, disregarding the boys' warnings about Gertrude's death. A ball of fire appears and strikes the clock, stopping the mechanism and throwing the professor to the floor.
The narrator and Harry flee the house and find themselves in 1574, during the siege. The townspeople, near starvation and despairing that a relief fleet will not arrive in time, are debating whether to accept an offer of amnesty from
Francisco de Valdez. A mob forms to confront the
burgomaster
Burgomaster (alternatively spelled burgermeister, ) is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief magistrate or executive of a city or town. The name in English was derived from the Dutch .
In so ...
, Pieter Adriaanszoon van der Werff. In the commotion, Harry rushes to the aid of the burgomaster's daughter, who kisses him and introduces herself as Gertruyd. The burgomaster is unmoved by the mob, saying he would rather die than surrender, and invites them to kill him and eat his flesh. A shift in the wind renews hope that relief will arrive by morning. A crowd gathers overnight awaiting the first sight of the fleet.
The crowd is panicked by an explosion, knowing the wall has been breached but not the location. The narrator quickly finds the burgomaster and tells him where to find the breach. When they arrive, they find the attack is already being repelled. Among the defenders is Jan Lipperdam, whose resemblance to Professor Van Stopp surprises the narrator. Gertruyd tells her father that Harry spotted the breach, which has saved the city and all of Holland. The narrator implores Harry to return to their rooms, but Harry is reluctant to leave Gertruyd. Just then, the narrator loses consciousness, due to an arm injury sustained in the attack.
Three days later, the narrator is back at the university, in the present day. His arm is bandaged, and the seat beside him is empty. In his lecture, Professor Van Stopp speculates about the influence of the 19th century upon the 16th century, asking "If cause produces effect, does effect never induce cause?"
Publication history
This short story for boys was published anonymously in the New York newspaper ''
The Sun
The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot Plasma (physics), plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as ...
'' on September 18, 1881,
and not thereafter collected or publicised. As such it was a very ephemeral and slight work for juveniles, and it was not noticed by the critics of the time.
Rediscovery
Science fiction historian
Sam Moskowitz
Sam Moskowitz (June 30, 1920 – April 15, 1997) was an American writer, critic, and historian of science fiction.
Biography
As a child, Moskowitz greatly enjoyed reading science fiction pulp magazines. As a teenager, he organized a branch of ...
rediscovered Mitchell's stories and collected them in ''The Crystal Man: Landmark Science Fiction'' (1973).
Since then, "The Clock That Went Backward" has been regarded as the first known instance of using a mechanical device for
time travel
Time travel is the hypothetical activity of traveling into the past or future. Time travel is a concept in philosophy and fiction, particularly science fiction. In fiction, time travel is typically achieved through the use of a device known a ...
and the first story using a
temporal paradox as a central premise.
Any influence it may have had on later writers is uncertain. Given its publication history in an American daily newspaper, it is very unlikely that the British writers
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...
and
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...
, or the Spanish
Enrique Gaspar
Enrique Lucio Eugenio Gaspar y Rimbau (2 March 1842 in Madrid – 7 September 1902 in Oloron) was a Spanish diplomat and writer, who wrote many plays (''zarzuelas''), and one of the first novels involving time travel with a time machine, '' ...
, knew of the story before they wrote their works which used devices or machines to time-travel.
See also
*
List of time travel science fiction
Time travel is a common plot element Time travel in fiction, in fiction. Works where it plays a prominent role are listed below. For stories of time travel in antiquity, see the Time travel#History of the time travel concept, history of the time ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clock That Went Backward
Works originally published in American newspapers
1881 short stories
Short fiction about time travel
Fiction set in the 1570s
Short stories set in the Netherlands
War short stories