The original edition included the following essays: • "If
Drouet's Cart Had Stuck" by
Hilaire Belloc: In a 1791
point of divergence, the
Flight to Varennes is successful and the
First Coalition wins the
Battle of Valmy, restoring
Louis XVI to the
French throne as a puppet of the
British Empire.
France becomes a poor, backward nation, eventually entering
World War I, which happens a few years later than in reality and ends with the victory of the still-extant
Holy Roman Empire. • "If
Don John of Austria Had Married
Mary Queen of Scots" by
G. K. Chesterton • "If
Lee Had NOT Won the
Battle of Gettysburg" by
Winston Churchill: This essay is written from the viewpoint of a
historian in a world where the
Confederate Army won the Battle of Gettysburg and the
Civil War, and the narrator frequently asks what would have happened if this event had not occurred. The essay is an exercise of counter-counter-factual
irony. Although the Confederacy achieves independence, the
British Empire becomes a broker between the United States and
CSA, resulting in an eventual unification of all three as the "English Speaking Association", which prevents World War I. • "If Napoleon Had Escaped to America" by
H. A. L. Fisher:
Napoleon Bonaparte, fleeing from the
Battle of Waterloo, avoids surrendering to the British Empire and catches a ship sailing to
New York City. The essay is written from the perspective of a New York scholar who becomes a personal assistant of the former
Emperor of the French. Napoleon travels south to join
Simón Bolívar in liberating most of
Central America and
South America from
Spanish and
Portuguese rule. • "If the
Moors in Spain Had Won" by
Philip Guedalla: Islamic
Granada survives as a separate political entity, weakening Spain from the late 15th century onward, but resulting in a liberal humanist brand of
Islam, the adoption of
constitutional monarchy, and Spanish participation on the
Central Powers' side during
World War I against Granada and the
Entente Powers. • "If the
General Strike Had Succeeded" by
Ronald Knox: This essay is in the form of an article from
The Times of 1931, which describes a
Great Britain under
communist rule. • "If the Emperor Frederick Had Not Had
Cancer" by
Emil Ludwig:
Kaiser Friedrich III survives past 1888, and with his wife,
Empress Victoria, rules a liberal humanist
German Empire where their son
Kaiser Wilhelm II never succumbs to
militarism, due to the long-term benign effects of this scenario, leading to 1914 being a year of peace. • "If Louis XVI Had Had an Atom of Firmness" by
André Maurois: As with
Hilaire Belloc's essay above, the main story posits
Louis XVI as averting his
1793 death in the
French Revolution, but the
point of divergence happens in the 1770s rather than 1791, and leads to a more optimistic outcome. In a
frame story, a recently deceased historian is escorted by an
angel to a great
library in
Heaven, where he gets to read history books of possible worlds that did not come to be. His eye is caught by a book whose cover states that Louis XVI had a 46-year reign as
King of France, dying of a
lung disease in 1820. In the main story, the young king, shortly after coming to power in the mid 1770s, makes necessary financial and constitutional reforms beforehand that prevent the necessity for the Revolution, resulting in the survival of
France as a
constitutional monarchy into the twentieth century. Louis refuses to sponsor the
American Revolution and later builds an alliance with
Great Britain; the United States never exists, but the
Thirteen Colonies get the representation they desired from the
British Parliament, so the expanding America effectively controls Britain. The 1790s and 1800s are relatively peaceful decades for
Europe, and all nations live happily ever after. • "If
Byron Had Become King of
Greece" by
Harold Nicolson. The fun-loving
poet and
playwright recovers from his 1824 illness, becomes chief military strategist in the
Greek War of Independence against the
Ottoman Empire, and is chosen to be the new nation's first monarch in the 1830s. He is referred to in the story as George I of Greece, a name which in reality was given to
a different monarch 30 years later. • "If It Had Been Discovered in 1930 that
Bacon Really Did Write Shakespeare" by
J. C. Squire. Not a true alternate history, this is a comic farce wherein cultural upheavals, acts of quick thinking in rebranding tourist attractions, and additions of new
slang terms to the
English language occur when someone finds a box containing 17th-century documents proving that the plays generally accepted to have been written by William Shakespeare were in fact written by Sir Francis Bacon. • "If
Booth Had Missed
Lincoln" by
Milton Waldman: Booth's gun fails to fire at
Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, so he isn't able to
kill Lincoln. He is later put in an
insane asylum. Lincoln is charged with mismanaging the recently concluded
Civil War, and there is repeated friction between Lincoln and a hostile
United States Congress. Before Congress can impeach him in 1867, Lincoln dies, discredited and castigated as a spendthrift warmonger. Lincoln's role in this story is similar to that of his successor
Andrew Johnson in real history. ==Revised edition==