Oldest Alternate Histories
This section lists alternate histories written before the genre could be considered a genre. Arguments can be made for a number of possible dates marking a possible genre beginning point, from the 1931 publication of J.C. 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 L. Sprague de Camp's original short story of "Lest Darkness Fall" saw publication, an event which effectively made alternate history fiction a sub-genre of science fiction.
The increasing number of alternate histories which saw publication from the mid-1930s on are presumably a result of the generally respectful treatment given the subject by the essayists in Squire's If It Had Happened Otherwise and by historian Albert Toynbee in three essays included in his A Study of History.
The first allohistorical novel would seem to be Geoffroy-Château's Napoléon et la conquête du monde, 1812-1823: histoire de la monarchie universelle (1836). Benjamin Disraeli's The Wondrous Tale of Alroy (1833) predates that work, but there is serious question whether Alroy is truly allohistorical.
The earliest allohistorical short story is apparently Nathaniel Hawthorne's "P.'s Correspondence" (1845).
Other pre-1850 items listed below are not entirely alternate history but contain allohistorical digressions within larger works.
c-35 — Livy (Titus Livius). Ab urbe condita.
1732 — Lesage, Alain-René. Les Aventures de Monsieur Robert Chevalier, dit de Beauchêne, capitaine de flibustiers dans la Nouvelle-France.
1791 — Delisle de Sales, Jean-Baptiste-Claude. Ma République [vt Eponine, ou De la république].
1813 — Pignotti, Lorenzo. Storia della Toscana sino al principato: con diversi saggi sulle scienze, lettere e arti.
1833 — Disraeli, Benjamin. The Wondrous Tale of Alroy [vt Alroy: or, The Prince of the Captivity, a Wondrous Tale].
1836 — Geoffroy-Château, Louis-Napoléon. Napoléon et la conquête du monde, 1812-1823: histoire de la monarchie universelle [vt Napoléon apocryphe].
1845 — Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "P.'s Correspondence".
1849 — Disraeli, Isaac. "Of a History of Events Which Have Not Happened".
1854 — Méry, Joseph. "Histoire de ce qui n'est pas arrivé".
1872 — Blanqui, Louis-Auguste. L'Éternité par les astres: hypothèse astronomique.
1876 — Renouvier, Charles. Uchronie (l'utopie dans l'histoire), esquisse historique apocryphe du développement de la civilisation européenne tel qu'il n'a pas été, tel qu'il aurait pu être.
1881 — Hale, Edward Everett. "Hands Off".
1885 — Fabra, Nilo Maria. "Cuatro siglos de buen gobierno".
1895 — Holford, Castello N. 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, F.P. Hallie Marshall: A True Daughter of the South.
1900 — Herzl, Theodor. "Der Unterhimer Bounaparte".
1902 — Pidgin, Charles Felton. The Climax; or, What Might Have Been: A Romance of the Great Republic.
1904 — Beerbohm, Max. "A Panacea".
1905 — Wells, H.G. A Modern Utopia.
1906 — Munk, Odd. Det nye Norge: Krigen 1905.
1907 — Grunfeld, P.P. Alroy; A Music-drama, in Four Acts.
1907 — Trevelyan, G.M. "If Napoleon had Won the Battle of Waterloo".
1907 — Chamberlin, Joseph Edgar. The Ifs of History.
1918 — McManus, Lily. The Professor in Erin.
1920 — Beck, James M. "It Might Have Been".
1921 — Rigaut, Jacques. "Un brillant sujet".
1921 — Homsy, Gaston. Si les Allemands avaient gagne la guerre...
1922 — Baring, Maurice. "The Alternative".
1924 — Slonimski, Antoni. Torpeda czasu: powiesc fantastyczna.
1924 — Pervuhin, Mikhail. Pugachev — Pobeditel'.
1926 — Dent, Guy. Emperor of the If.
1926 — Waldron, Webb. "If Lincoln had Yielded".
1926 — Petrie, Charles. "If: A Jacobite Fantasy".
1927 — Motta, Luigi. Il tunnel sottomarino.
1929 — Laumann, E.M., and René Jeanne. Si, le 9 thermidor...: hypothèse historique.
1929 — Doyle, Arthur Conan. "The Death Voyage".
1929 — Hearnshaw, F.J.C. The "Ifs" of History.
1930 — Newman, Bernard. The Cavalry Went Through!
1930 — Waldman, Milton. "If Booth had Missed Lincoln".
1930 — Mencken, H.L. "The Calamity of Appomattox".
1930 — Thurber, James. "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox".
1931 — Belloc, Hilaire. "If Drouet's Cart had Stuck".
1931 — Squire, J.C. "If It Had Been Discovered in 1930 that Bacon Really Did Write Shakespeare" [vt "Professor Gubbin's Revolution"].
1931 — Van Loon, Hendrik Willem. "If the Dutch had Kept Nieuw Amsterdam".
1931 — Chesterton, G.K. "If Don John of Austria had Married Mary Queen of Scots".
1931 — Squire, J.C. (ed.). If It Had Happened Otherwise: Lapses Into Imaginary History [vt If: or, History Rewritten].
1931 — Ludwig, Emil. "If the Emperor Frederick had not had Cancer".
1931 — Knox, Ronald. "If the General Strike had Succeeded".
1931 — Nicolson, Harold. "If Byron had Become King of Greece".
1931 — Fisher, H.A.L. "If Napoleon had Escaped to America".
1931 — Churchill, Winston S. "If Lee had not Won the Battle of Gettysburg".
1931 — Maurois, André. "If Louis XVI had an Atom of Firmness".
1931 — Guedalla, Philip. "If the Moors in Spain had Won".
1932 — Goodman, Arthur. If Booth had Missed: A Drama of the Reconstruction Period.
1933 — Newman, Bernard. Hosanna!
1933 — Squire, J.C. "What Might Have Happened".
1933 — Schachner, Nat. "Ancestral Voices".
1934 — Toynbee, Arnold J. "The Forfeited Birthright of the Abortive Far Western Christian Civilization".
1934 — Toynbee, Arnold J. "The Forfeited Birthright of the Abortive Scandinavian Civilization".
1934 — Toynbee, Arnold J. "The Forfeited Birthright of the Abortive Far Eastern Christian Civilization".
1934 — Leinster, Murray. "Sidewise in Time".
1935 — Benét, Stephen Vincent. "The Curfew Tolls".
1935 — Lewis, Lloyd. "If Lincoln Had Lived".
1935 — Rolfe, Frederick William, and C.H. Pirie-Gordon. Hubert's Arthur: Being Certain Curious Documents Found Among the Literary Remains of Mr. N.C.
1936 — Dabney, Virginius. "If the South had Won the War".
1937 — Aron, Robert. Victoire à Waterloo.
1937 — Nock, Albert Jay. "If Only—".
1938 — Sell, William. "Other Tracks".
1938 — Bopp, Léon. Liaisons du monde: roman d'un politique.
1938 — Villard, Oswald Garrison. "Issue and Men".
1939 — de Camp, L. Sprague. Lest Darkness Fall.
