The hero is anyone who has ever longed for escape to a better life. The time is tomorrow. The place is a Utopian America. This is the backdrop for Edward Bellamy's prophetic novel about a young Boston gentleman who is mysteriously transported from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century - from a world of war and want to a world of peace and plenty. Translated into more than twenty languages, and the most widely read novel of its time, "Looking Backward" is more than a brilliant visionary's view of the future. It is a blueprint of the "perfect society, " a guidebook that stimulated some of the greatest thinkers of our age. John Dewey, Charles Beard, and Edward Weeks, in separate surveys conducted in 1935, listed Edward Bellamy's novel as the most influential work written by an American in the preceding fifty years. Table of Contents:Introduction by Cecilia TichiSuggestions for Further ReadingA Note on the TextLOOKING BACKWARDEdward Bellamy (March 26, 1850 - May 22, 1898) was an American author and socialist, most famous for his utopian novel, Looking Backward, 2000-1887, a tale set in the distant future of the year 2000. Bellamy's early novels, including Six to One (1878), Dr. Heidenhoff's Process (1880), and Miss Ludington's Sister (1885) did not bring him much renown, but a turn to utopian science fiction with Looking Backward, published in January 1888, captured the public imagination and catapulted Bellamy to literary fame. Within a year the book had sold some 200,000 copies and by the end of the 19th century it had sold more copies than nearly any other book published in America up to that time, as well as spawning political movements around the country. Bellamy died of tuberculosis at the age of 48. Target Age: 18 and up Penguin Publishing Group Pub Date: December 16, 1982 ISBN: 9780140390186 0.46" H x 7.9" L x 5.04" W 240 pages paperback
