The more Richard learns, the more he becomes convinced that it is his destiny to travel back in time and become that mysterious man.

Through research, he learns that she had an overprotective manager named William Fawcett Robinson, that she never married and that she seemed to have had a brief affair with a mysterious man while staying at this hotel in 1896. He becomes obsessed with the photograph of a famous stage actress, Elise McKenna, who performed at the hotel in the 1890s. Most of the novel represents a private journal he is continually updating throughout the story. Richard Collier is a 36-year-old screenwriter who has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and has decided, after a coin flip, to spend his last days hanging around the Hotel del Coronado.

Robert Collier - Richard's brother, who decides to publish Richard's manuscripts.

William Fawcett Robinson - Elise's overbearing manager, who distrusts Richard.

Elise McKenna - a 19th-century stage actress with whom Richard falls in love after seeing her photo in a hotel gallery.

Richard Collier - protagonist and main narrator, a 36-year-old man from the 1970s who travels back in time to meet the woman of his dreams.

The book's original title comes from a line in William Shakespeare's Richard II (Act III, Scene 2): 'O call back yesterday, bid time return.' Main characters Matheson based much of the biographical information about the character of Elise McKenna directly on Adams. To create the novel, he resided for many weeks at the Hotel del Coronado (where the novel takes place) and dictated his impressions into a tape recorder while experiencing himself in the role of Richard Collier.

What if some guy did the same thing and could go back in time?' Then Matheson researched her life and was struck by her reclusiveness. 'It was such a great photograph,' Matheson reports, 'that creatively I fell in love with her. While traveling with his family, Matheson was entranced by the portrait of American actress Maude Adams in Piper's Opera House in Nevada. I feel that they represent the best writing I have done in the novel form.' Background Matheson has stated, ' Somewhere in Time is the story of a love which transcends time, What Dreams May Come is the story of a love which transcends death. In 1980, it was made into the classic sci-fi film Somewhere in Time, the title of which was used for subsequent editions of the book. It concerns a man from the 1970s who travels back in time to court a 19th-century stage actress whose photograph has captivated him. Bid Time Return is a 1975 science fiction novel by Richard Matheson.

Bid time return novel