Edward Bellamy

Easton Press Edward Bellamy books

Looking Backward - Masterpieces of American Literature - 1981
Looking Backward - Books The Changed The World - 1992

 

Who was Edward Bellamy?

Born on March 26, 1850, in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, Edward Bellamy emerged as a prominent American author and social reformer in the late 19th century. His literary contributions, notably the groundbreaking utopian novel Looking Backward, 2000-1887, marked him as a visionary thinker whose ideas left an enduring impact on both literature and social thought. Bellamy came from a family deeply rooted in intellectual pursuits. His father, Rufus King Bellamy, was a Baptist minister, and his maternal grandfather, Joseph Bellamy, was a renowned Calvinist theologian. This upbringing instilled in young Edward a sense of moral responsibility and a keen interest in social issues.

After completing his education at Union College, Bellamy pursued a career in journalism. He worked as an editor and a freelance writer, developing a literary style that would later serve him well in conveying his visionary ideas. His early works included essays, short stories, and biographies, but it was his utopian novel, Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888), that catapulted him to literary fame. Looking Backward presented a compelling vision of a future society that had overcome the inequalities and struggles of Bellamy's contemporary world. The protagonist, Julian West, falls into a deep slumber in 1887 and awakens in the year 2000 to find a radically transformed and utopian America. Bellamy's narrative outlined a society where wealth and resources were shared equally, and cooperation replaced competition. The novel struck a chord with readers and sparked widespread discussion and debate. Its popularity led to the formation of "Bellamy Clubs" across the United States, where people gathered to discuss and promote the ideas presented in the book. The impact of Looking Backward extended beyond literary circles and influenced political and social movements.

Edward Bellamy's success as a writer and visionary thinker did not shield him from personal challenges. He faced health issues and the untimely death of his wife, Emma Augusta Sanderson, which deeply affected him. Despite these hardships, he continued his work, producing other novels such as Equality (1897) and Dr. Heidenhoff's Process (1880), as well as contributing to magazines.

Tragically, Edward Bellamy's life was cut short at the age of 48 when he died of tuberculosis on May 22, 1898. Though his time on Earth was relatively brief, his ideas left a lasting legacy. Looking Backward and Bellamy's other works continue to be studied and remembered for their influence on social and political thought. Edward Bellamy's utopian vision and commitment to social reform serve as a testament to the power of literature to inspire change and shape the collective imagination.

 

Looking Backward

Edward Bellamy's classic look at the future has been translated into over twenty languages and is the most widely read novel of its time. A young Boston gentleman is mysteriously transported from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century from a world of war and want to one of peace and plenty. This brilliant vision became the blueprint of utopia that stimulated some of the greatest thinkers of our age.

Looking Backward is a utopian science fiction novel by Edward Bellamy, a journalist and writer from Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts; it was first published in 1888. The book was translated into several languages, and in short order "sold a million copies." According to a 2021 essay in The New York Times, "In the 19th-century United States, only Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold more copies in its first years than 'Looking Backward.'" It influenced many intellectuals, and appears by title in many socialist writings of the day. "It is one of the few books ever published that created almost immediately on its appearance a political mass movement".

Edward Bellamy quotes

"Human history, like all great movements, was cyclical, and returned to the point of beginning. The idea of indefinite progress in a right line was a chimera of the imagination, with no analogue in nature. The parabola of a comet was perhaps a yet better illustration of the career of humanity. Tending upward and sunward from the aphelion of barbarism, the race attained the perihelion of civilization only to plunge downward once more to its nether goal in the regions of chaos."
"The privilege of any individual to use the land for the purpose of making profit by its cultivation is but an instance of the general principle of private property, and has no place in the economy of the future."
"Nationalism is the imperative logical deduction from the doctrine of evolution as applied to human society. If the struggle for existence, operating with increasing intensity, must in the end prevail throughout nature, it follows that the nation, as the most highly organized form of collective life, will become the arena of its fiercest manifestations."
"Human nature, like all other nature, is a great circular stream, rolling on from the beginning to the end. It is a stream in which all the tributary streams of history and tradition are endlessly swirling."