Q 01/05

Which author's 1895 novella popularised the idea of travelling through the years by mechanical means?

A) Jules Verne

B) H. G. Wells

C) Edward Bellamy

D) Mark Twain

Answer · why

B) H. G. Wells

He coined the term 'time machine', and sends his Time Traveller to the year 802,701 to meet the Eloi and the Morlocks.

Q 02/05

In H.G. Wells's The Time Machine, the Time Traveller journeys to which year?

A) 2,001

B) 30,000

C) 500,000

D) 802,701

Answer · why

D) 802,701

Humanity has split into the childlike Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks, a jab at Victorian class divisions.

Q 03/05

Samuel Madden's 1733 Memoirs of the Twentieth Century is a set of letters from which years?

A) 1900 and 1901

B) 1997 and 1998

C) 1950 and 1951

D) 2000 and 2001

Answer · why

B) 1997 and 1998

British ambassadors of the future write back to diplomats of the past about politics and religion.

Q 04/05

Enrique Gaspar's 1887 novel El Anacronópete may be the first story to feature what?

A) A telephone that dials the past

B) A vessel built to travel through time

C) A day repeated in a loop

D) A man who kills his own grandfather

Answer · why

B) A vessel built to travel through time

It beat Wells's Time Machine by eight years.

Q 05/05

In Washington Irving's 1819 tale, what mechanism sends Rip Van Winkle into the future?

A) A lightning strike

B) A blow to the head

C) An extraordinarily long sleep

D) A magic potion

Answer · why

C) An extraordinarily long sleep

It is an early example of the 'time slip' device that Twain later used with a knock on the head.