# Great Work of Time > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Great_Work_of_Time > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Great_Work_of_Time.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Work_of_Time > Source revision: 1322735732 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) 1989 science fiction novella This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (September 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) Great Work of Time Cover of the first edition (1991) Author John Crowley Genre Science fiction Novella Publisher Bantam Books ISBN 978-0-553-29319-7 **"Great Work of Time"** is a [science fiction](/source/Science_fiction) [novella](/source/Novella) by American writer [John Crowley](/source/John_Crowley_(author)), originally published in Crowley's 1989 book collection *Novelty*. A story involving [time travel](/source/Time_travel), it concerns a [secret society](/source/Secret_society) whose aim is to avert [World War I](/source/World_War_I) to preserve and expand the [British Empire](/source/British_Empire). ## Plot Caspar Last uses his newly created time machine to travel to 19th-century [British Guiana](/source/British_Guiana) to obtain the very rare [British Guiana 1c magenta](/source/British_Guiana_1c_magenta) stamp. Last plans to sell the stamp, reap the profits, and never again use time travel or let it be used by others. A shadowy group called the Otherhood buys his stamp and takes control of the time machine, which it wishes to use to preserve the existence of the [British Empire](/source/British_Empire). In the new timeline, the British Empire survives as a dominant world power throughout the 20th century. Denys Winterset, a promising young official in the [Colonial Service](/source/Colonial_Service) in Africa in the 1950s, travels the [Cape to Cairo Railway](/source/Cape_to_Cairo_Railway), where he meets a mysterious stranger, and is invited to join the Otherhood. Winterset is told that he must travel back to the beginning of the group in 1893 and assassinate its founder [Cecil Rhodes](/source/Cecil_Rhodes). Otherwise, in the late 1890s, Rhodes will change his will and dissipate much of his fortune, the Otherhood will never come into being, and the original timeline will be restored. In another timeline, a different manifestation of Winterset travels into the future, even though such travel had been forbidden by the Otherhood. There, he learns that excessive tinkering with the timelines has generated countless unintended changes. The citizens of this world ask Winterset to go back, prevent the previous Winterset from killing Rhodes, and restore the "true" timeline. Meanwhile, the other Winterset has arrived in [1893 Cape Town](/source/History_of_Cape_Town#The_1800_and_1900s) and has no difficulty in gaining Rhodes's trust. At the moment of opportunity, a mysterious force, implied to be the future Winterset, prevents Winterset from pulling the trigger. The mission fails and traps Winterset in the past. Winterset enters the service of Rhodes and witnesses first-hand the ugly and brutal side of Rhodes's independent colony-building. Later on, Winterset can only watch helplessly as "The Original Situation" reasserts itself, the world is convulsed by two World Wars, and the second one is followed by the breakup of the British Empire. In the final chapter, Winterset, a young man, now living in the "true" 20th-century history, enters the Colonial Service, now a doomed institution, with the Empire's colonies being ceded to new independent nations in Africa. He meets his older self in 1956 in Africa and learns of the truth of time travel. He helps his older self escape from Africa amid the chaos and returns to [London](/source/London), where the story ends with their last meeting many years later. Winterset notes in *[The Times](/source/The_Times)* newspaper "the sale of the single known example of the 1856 magenta British Guiana" stamp, known to have been owned in 1956 by the Otherhood, and realises that time travel means that his story is still vulnerable to being rewritten. ## Analysis As noted by the critic Susan Young: *Great Work of Time* has the same basic outline as Isaac Asimov's *[The End of Eternity](/source/The_End_of_Eternity)* - i.e. a secret society of well-meaning time travelers bent on remodeling history, and a young man recruited into the society in order to make a specific change that would bring this society itself into being. The details of what the time travelers do and where in time they operate are much different from those in Asimov's book. However, in both books, the society's operations come to a halt through the influence of people from the future, because the society's actions endanger the existence of the future.[1] ## Awards The story won the [World Fantasy Award for Best Novella](/source/World_Fantasy_Award_for_Best_Novella) in 1990.[2] ## Publication history - *Novelty: Four Stories*, 1989 - *The Great Work of Time*, 1992, publisher: Spectra, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [0-553-29319-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0-553-29319-2) - *Novelties & Souvenirs: Collected Short Fiction*, 2004, publisher: Harper Perennial, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-380-73106-0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-380-73106-0) - *A Science Fiction Omnibus*, 2007, edited by Brian Aldiss, publisher: Penguin books, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-14-118892-8](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-14-118892-8) ## References 1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** Young, Susan F. "Well-Meaning Do-Gooders and Time-Travel Paradoxes". In Bell, Edward (ed.). *The Sociology of Science Fiction*. 1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** World Fantasy Convention. ["Award Winners and Nominees"](http://www.worldfantasy.org/awards/winners/). Retrieved 20 July 2021. ## Further reading - Card, Orson Scott (January 1992). ["Books to Look For: Fantasy & Science Fiction"](http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/f&sf/92-01.html). *Hatrack.com*. Retrieved 18 December 2022. Review of *Great Work of Time*. - Morrison, James (September 2005). ["Small but Perfectly Formed"](https://web.archive.org/web/20081002011035/http://www.bookslut.com/small_but_perfectly_formed/2005_09_006545.php). *Bookslut.com*. Archived from [the original](http://www.bookslut.com/small_but_perfectly_formed/2005_09_006545.php) on 2 October 2008. Reviews several books by Crowley v t e Works by John Crowley Novels The Deep (1975) Beasts (1976) Engine Summer (1979) Little, Big (1981) The Translator (2002) Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land (2005) Four Freedoms (2009) The Chemical Wedding: by Christian Rosencreutz: A Romance in Eight Days by Johann Valentin Andreae in a New Version (2016) Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr (2017) Flint and Mirror: A Novel of History and Magic (2022) Ægypt Cycle The Solitudes (1987) Love & Sleep (1994) Dæmonomania (2000) Endless Things (2007) Short fiction "Antiquities" (1977) "Where Spirits Gat Them Home" (1978) "The Single Excursion of Caspar Last" (1979) "The Reason for the Visit" (1980) "The Green Child" (1981) "Novelty" (1983) "Snow" (1985) "The Nightingale Sings at Night" (1989) "Great Work of Time" (novella, originally published in Novelty, 1989) "In Blue" (1989) "Missolonghi 1824" (1990) "Exogamy" (1993) "Gone" (1996) "Lost and Abandoned" (1997) "An Earthly Mother Sits and Sings" (2000) "The War Between the Objects and the Subjects" (2002) "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines" (2002) "Little Yeses, Little Nos" (2005) "Conversation Hearts" (2008) "And Go Like This" (2011) v t e World Fantasy Award—Novella 1982–2000 The Fire When It Comes by Parke Godwin (1982) Confess the Seasons by Charles L. Grant (1983, tie) Beyond Any Measure by Karl Edward Wagner (1983, tie) Black Air by Kim Stanley Robinson (1984) The Unconquered Country by Geoff Ryman (1985) Nadelman's God by T. E. D. Klein (1986) Hatrack River by Orson Scott Card (1987) Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight by Ursula K. Le Guin (1988) The Skin Trade by George R. R. Martin (1989) "Great Work of Time" by John Crowley (1990) Bones by Pat Murphy (1991) The Ragthorn by Robert Holdstock and Garry Kilworth (1992) The Ghost Village by Peter Straub (1993) Under the Crust by Terry Lamsley (1994) Last Summer at Mars Hill by Elizabeth Hand (1995) Radio Waves by Michael Swanwick (1996) A City in Winter by Mark Helprin (1997) Streetcar Dreams by Richard Bowes (1998) The Summer Isles by Ian R. MacLeod (1999) The Transformation of Martin Lake by Jeff VanderMeer (2000, tie) Sky Eyes by Laurel Winter (2000, tie) 2001–present The Man on the Ceiling by Steve Rasnic Tem & Melanie Tem (2001) The Bird Catcher by S. P. Somtow (2002) The Library by Zoran Živković (2003) A Crowd of Bone by Greer Gilman (2004) The Growlimb by Michael Shea (2005) Voluntary Committal by Joe Hill (2006) Botch Town by Jeffrey Ford (2007) Illyria by Elizabeth Hand (2008) If Angels Fight by Richard Bowes (2009) Sea-Hearts by Margo Lanagan (2010) The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon by Elizabeth Hand (2011) A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong by Tom Holt (2012) Let Maps to Others by Tom Holt (2013) Wakulla Springs by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages (2014) We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory (2015) The Unlicensed Magician by Kelly Barnhill (2016) The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson (2017) Passing Strange by Ellen Klages (2018) "The Privilege of the Happy Ending" by Kij Johnson (2019) Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh (2020) Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi (2021) And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed (2022) Pomegranates by Priya Sharma (2023) Half the House Is Haunted by Josh Malerman (2024) --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Great Work of Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Work_of_Time) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Work_of_Time?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.