THE USENET ALTERNATE HISTORY LIST
Version 20 - 12 October 1994

APPENDIX B - OLDEST ALTERNATE HISTORIES

This appendix lists Alternate Histories written before that genre of writing
could be considered a genre. Arguments can be made for a number of possible
dates marking a possible beginning point, from the 1931 publication of Squire's
anthology IF IT HAD HAPPENED OTHERWISE to the 1953 publication of Ward Moore's
BRING THE JUBILEE. The date chosen here is 1939, the year that de Camp's
original short story of "Lest Darkness Fall" saw publication. The increasing
number of alternate histories which saw publication from the mid-1930s on are
presumably a result of the respectful treatment given the subject by the
essayists in Squire's IF IT HAD HAPPENED OTHERWISE and by historian Albert
Toynbee in his A STUDY OF HISTORY.

The first undisputable AH _novel_ is Geoffroy-Chateau's NAPOLEON ET LA CONQUETE
DU MONDE, 1812-1823: HISTOIRE DE LA MONARCHIE UNIVERSELLE (1836), and the
earliest novel in English is Holford Costello's ARISTOPIA. A ROMANCE-HISTORY OF
THE NEW WORLD (1895). Other pre-1850 book-length items listed below are not
entirely alternate history but contain AH digressions. The earliest AH short
story is apparently Hawthorne's "P.'s Correspondence" (1845).

Titles are presented here by date of first known _publication_, although some
items are known to have been written several years in advance of that date.

c 1     Livy (Titus Livius), AB URBE CONDITA
1732    Lesage, Alain-Rene, LES AVENTURES DE MONSIEUR ROBERT CHEVALIER, DIT DE
          BEAUCHENE, CAPITAINE DE FILIBUSTIERS DANS LA NOUVELLE-FRANCE
1791    Delisle de Sales, Jean Claude Izouard, MA REPUBLIQUE
1813    Pignotti, Lorenzo, STORIA DELLA TOSCANA SINO EL PRINCIPATO: CON DIVERSI
          SAGGI SULLE SCIENZE, LETTERE E ARTI
1836    Geoffroy-Chateau, Louis-Napoleon, NAPOLEON ET LA CONQUETE DU MONDE,
          1812-1823: HISTOIRE DE LA MONARCHIE UNIVERSELLE
1845    Hawthorne, Nathaniel, "P.'s Correspondence"
1849    Disraeli, Isaac, "Of a History of Events Which Have Not Happened"
1872    Blanqui, Louis-Auguste, L'ETERNITE PAR LES ASTRES: HYPOTHESE
          ASTRONOMIQUE
1876    Renouvier, Charles, UCHRONIE (L'UTOPIE DANS L'HISTOIRE), ESQUISSE
          HISTORIQUE APOCRYPHE DU DEVELOPMENT DE LA CIVILISATION EUROPEENNE TEL
          QU'IL N'A PAS ETE, TEL QU'IL AURAIT PU ETRE
1881    Hale, Edward Everett, "Hands Off"
1895    Costello, Holford, ARISTOPIA. A ROMANCE-HISTORY OF THE NEW WORLD
1899    Lawrence, Edmund, IT MAY HAPPEN YET: A TALE OF BONAPARTE'S INVASION OF
          ENGLAND
1900    Williams, Frank Purdy, HALLIE MARSHALL: A TRUE DAUGHTER OF THE SOUTH
1904    Beerbohm, Max, "A Panacea"
1905    Wells, H.G., A MODERN UTOPIA
1907    Chamberlin, Joseph Edgar, THE IFS OF HISTORY
        Trevelyan, G.M., "If Napoleon had Won the Battle of Waterloo"
1920    Beck, James M., "It Might Have Been"
1921    Rigaut, Jacques, "Un brillant sujet"
1922    Baring, Maurice, "The Alternative"
1924    Slonimski, Antoni, TORPEDA CZASU: POWIESC FANTASTYCZNA
1926    Dent, Guy, EMPEROR OF THE IF
1926    Petrie, Charles, "If: A Jacobite Fantasy"
        Waldron, Webb, "If Lincoln had Yielded"
1927    Motta, Luigi, IL TONNEL SOTTOMARINO
1929    Doyle, Arthur Conan, "The Death Voyage"
        Hearnshaw, F.J.C., THE "IFS" OF HISTORY
        Laumann, E.M., & Rene Jeanne, SI, LE 9 THERMIDOR...: HYPOTHESE
          HISTORIQUE
1930    Churchill, Winston S., "If Lee had not Won the Battle of Gettysburg"
        Thurber, James, "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox"
        Waldman, Milton, "If Booth had Missed Lincoln"
1931    Squire, J.C. (ed), IF IT HAD HAPPENED OTHERWISE: LAPSES INTO IMAGINARY
          HISTORY
        Belloc, Hilaire, "If Drouet's Cart had Stuck"
        Chesterton, G.K., "If Don John of Austria had Married Mary Queen of
          Scots"
        Fisher, H.A.L., "If Napoleon had Escaped to America"
        Guedalla, Philip, "If the Moors in Spain had Won"
        Knox, Ronald, "If the General Strike had Succeeded"
        Ludwig, Emil, "If the Emperor Frederick had not had Cancer"
        Maurois, Andre, "If Louis XVI had an Atom of Firmness"
        Nicolson, Harold, "If Byron had Become King of Greece"
        Squire, J.C., If It Had Been Discovered in 1930 that Bacon Really Did
          Write Shakespeare"
        Van Loon, Hendrik Willem, "If the Dutch had Kept Nieuw Amsterdam"
1932    Goodman, Arthur, IF BOOTH HAD MISSED: A DRAMA OF THE RECONSTRUCTION
          PERIOD
1933    Schachner, Nat, "Ancestral Voices"
        Squire, J.C., "What Might Have Happened"
1934    Leinster, Murray, "Sideways in Time"
        Toynbee, Arnold J., "The Forfeited Birthright of the Abortive Far
          Eastern Christian Civilization"
        Toynbee, Arnold J., "The Forfeited Birthright of the Abortive Far
          Western Christian Civilization"
        Toynbee, Arnold J., "The Forfeited Birthright of the Abortive
          Scandinavian Civilization"
1935    Benet, Stephen Vincent, "The Curfew Tolls"
        Rolfe, Frederick William, & C.H. Pirie-Gordon, HUBERT'S ARTHUR: BEING
          CERTAIN CURIOUS DOCUMENTS FOUND AMONG THE LITERARY REMAINS OF MR.
          N.C.
1936    Dabney, Virginia, "If the South had Won the War"
1937    Aron, Robert, VICTOIRE A WATERLOO
1938    Bopp, Leon, LIAISONS DU MONDE: ROMAN
        Sell, William, "Other Tracks"
        Villard, Oswald Garrison, "Issue and Men"