The London times of 1904

by Mark Twain

In "From The London Times of 1904", The Author Mark Twains dabbles in Science-Fiction, talking about a fictional Telectroscope, a fictional device invented by the year 1904, which would allow a person to send information, images and other amazing things through the use of the already widespread telephone wires. In effect, he predicted the invention of the Internet, albeit being off by a few decades.

16 pages, Unbound

First published January 1, 1898

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.

Reviews

[Zee Bee · Rating 4 out of 5]

ZOOM CALL GO BRRRR!

This gets clunky and cumbersome, but overall I am shook this was written when it was and it deserves much more attention than it has been given.

[Denae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this after experiencing 2020 is a little wild. Mark Twain casually wrote about Zoom/Skype/Facetime in 1898.

[Cristina Kiefer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short and sweet...and it works in the steampunk category :) but is it really a novel? Does it stand alone? It's the only one of the 6 in a pack of steampunk novels that I read! And I read it all in one night in one sitting! Interesting. Someone had previously noted that the "elelectrocope" was a precursor to the internet. I thought it more resembled a cellphone. Whatever, though, it, was written over 100 years ago!!! Just tells me that no matter how outlandish an idea might be, it may still come to pass.

[Kevin Hull · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable turn of the century sci fi short story that more or less predicted the Internet. Can't imagine why this is not more famous.