Lots of science fiction stories today are set in the future. Sometimes they give a specific date, like they'll say "AD 2532". Sometimes it's not spelled out but it's obvious, like I'm not sure if Star Trek ever gave an actual date, but it's obviously supposed to be a few hundred years from now.
What was the first story to do this?
By "the future" I mean the writer's future, not necessarily ours. If you know of a story written in AD 1000 but set in AD 1500, in which the writer talks about amazing future technologies like the printing press, and discovery of a new continent to the west, that's exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for.
I'm sure we could get into quibbles over definitions. I'm looking for "stories", things that could be called "science fiction stories" in some broad sense. I want to rule out statements of future intent, like, "Next year we will attack the Ottoman Empire", or simple predictions of consequences, like, "Ceasar, if you don't reinforce Gaul, within five years the barbarians will invade."
Arguably there could be a fine line between a warning and a story. Like, "If you continue on this course, I see a time, maybe ten or twenty years from now, when the barbarians will invade. Perhaps it will begin with a barbarian horde attacking the outpost at ..." At some point a discussion of what could happen in a hypothetical situation could cross the line into being a story. If you know of borderline examples, feel free to mention them.
I'd also exclude stories that talk about the passage of time without specifying the start and end points in any way. I'm thinking, for example, of Rip van Winkle: A man is put under a spell that makes him sleep for 20 years. But I don't think the story ever says whether it starts in the present and he wakes up 20 years in the future, or he started 20 years ago and wakes up in the present, or if the start and end are both in the past, or, more likely, that it just doesn't matter to the story, because it's not about social or technological change over time but about one person's personal and family life.
Let's also rule out religious prophecies. The accuracy and significance of such prophecies is a fascinating question -- and probably more important than the question I'm asking! -- but that's a totally different subject, and wouldn't be within the scope of this forum anyway.
Answer
FuzzyBoots' answer seems like a good one, but it might count as a "religious prophecy"--the description of humanity becoming enfeebled was likely connected to the idea of history going through a cycle of 4 ages known as Yugas during which the human race becomes increasingly weaker and less virtuous. Edit: It also seems January First-of-May's comment on Fuzzyboots' answer is correct, apparently after Kakudmi was transported forward in time with his daughter Revati by a period of 27 full cycles of the 4 yugas, Revati was then married to Balarama, who was a character that was contemporary with the main war story of the Mahabhrata as mentioned at the top of page 122 of this book, so that means that Kakudmi and Revati must have originally come from the distant past.
If you do count it as a religious prophecy, some secular visions of the future can be found in this article:
The first known fictions even vaguely set in future time are Francis Cheynell's six-page political tract Aulicus: His Dream of the King's Second Coming to London (1644) and Jacques Guttin's Epigone, Story of the Future Century (1659). Fully developed fictions set in the future would not appear until well into the 18th century.
And p.9 of the Routledge Companion to Science Fiction, viewable on google books here, gives a slightly earlier candidate:
For example, the anonymous English play A Larum for London (1602) dramatizes the recent Spanish sack of Antwerp in order, explicitly, to present London with a possible future narrative of Spanish invasion. Time itself appears as a character on stage, exhorting the audience to consider how the future might play out and claiming that he "doth wish to see / No heavy or disastrous chaunce befall / The Sonnes of men, if they will warned be." (Anon. 1913:51)
Not sure if this future was actually dramatized or just described by the character of Time, though--the plot description on wikipedia only talks about the play's depiction of the historical invasion of Antwerp, not the future invasion of England. The full play is available online here, though the spelling and the typeface may make it a bit of chore to read.
Incidentally, if you're curious more generally about narratives of the future predating the well-known 19th century authors like Verne and Wells, I recommend the book Origins of Futuristic Fiction by Paul Alkon.
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