Enrique Gaspar, the Writer who Unveiled the First Time Machine Before H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells is considered the original creator of stories about machines capable of time travel, but what if a writer had devised something similar years earlier?

Here is an excerpt from a review about a very special book, in a chronicle published on Friday 18 February 1887 in the magazine La Dinastía, Barcelona (Spain):

The volume (…) is adorned with illustrations by Gómez Soler and is written by the prolific and acclaimed playwright Don Enrique Gaspar. The book has three parts, a novel, El Anacronópete, descriptive letters of a Journey to China, and a short story, Metempsychosis. Gaspar, only known as a comedy writer, stands out here as a novelist and storyteller of very sharp wit. El Anacronópete is a fantastic relationship in the style of Jules Verne, barely yielding to the author’s scientific erudition and perhaps surpassing him in originality and strangeness. We don’t want to give an idea of his newest argument because we don’t want to deprive the readers of the pleasure of the surprise.

Why was the journalist so surprised by Enrique Gaspar’s story? Perhaps, in other circumstances, such as if it had been written in late 19th century England and, of course, in English, Henry Gaspar’s little book would have been considered today as the unquestionable forerunner of all literature on time travel. But no, the first novel to mention a time machine fell into oblivion soon after its publication.