Bid Time Return

Bid Time Return, a 1975 science fiction novel by Richard Matheson, follows a man from the 1970s who travels back in time to woo a 19th-century stage actress whose portrait has enchanted him. The book was adapted into the 1980 film *Somewhere in Time*, and that title was later used for reprints of the novel. Matheson described the story as one about a love that surpasses time, contrasting it with his novel *What Dreams May Come*, which he called a love that surpasses death; he considered both his finest novel-length work.

The inspiration came when Matheson, traveling with his family, was captivated by a portrait of actress Maude Adams at Piper's Opera House in Nevada. He said he "creatively fell in love with her" and wondered what would happen if someone felt the same and could travel back in time. After researching Adams's reclusive life, Matheson spent weeks at the Hotel del Coronado, where the novel is set, dictating his impressions into a tape recorder while imagining himself as the protagonist, Richard Collier. He based much of the character Elise McKenna's biography directly on Adams. The original title comes from a line in Shakespeare's *Richard II*: "O call back yesterday, bid time return."

The main characters are Richard Collier, a 36-year-old narrator from the 1970s who time-travels to meet the woman he dreams of; Elise McKenna, a 19th-century stage actress he falls for after seeing her photo; William Fawcett Robinson, her controlling manager who distrusts Richard; and Robert Collier, Richard's brother, who decides to publish Richard's manuscripts.

The plot begins with Richard, a screenwriter diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, deciding by coin flip to spend his remaining days at the Hotel del Coronado. Most of the novel is his private journal. He becomes obsessed with a photograph of Elise McKenna, who performed there in the 1890s. Research reveals she had an overprotective manager, never married, and apparently had a brief affair with a mysterious man at the hotel in 1896. Richard becomes convinced he is that man. Studying theories of time, he believes he can hypnotize himself into 1896. After much effort, he succeeds, feeling disoriented and fearing he'll be pulled back to the present, though these feelings fade.