S2. THE TIME MACHINNE

H. G. Wells short novel " The Time Machine " an undisputed masterpiece of Science fiction, was not the first story about a time machine. That distinction belongs to " The Clock That Went Backward " a pioneering but mediocre yarn by Edward Page Mitchell, an editor of the New York Sun (18.9.1881), seven years before young Wells (22 years old) wrote the first version of his famous story. Mitchell's tale was quickly forgotten. Nor did anyone pay much attention to Well's fantasy when it was serialized in 1888 in 'The Science Schools Journal' under the horrendous title "The Chronic Argonauts". It was badly written and its publication discontinued after 3 installments. What the world knows is the rewritten version serialized in 1894 in "The New Review" under the caption "The Time Traveler's Story".
(Source - Time Travel And Other Mathematical Bewilderments by Martin Gardner).