Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Edward Bellamy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140390189 ISBN 13: 9780140390186

Publisher: Penguin, 1986

Synopsis

It is the year 2000-and full employment, material abundance and social harmony can be found everywhere. This is the America to which Julian West, a young Bostonian, awakens after more than a century of sleep. West's initial sense of wonder, his gradual acceptance of the new order and a new love, and Bellamy's wonderful prophetic inventions - electric lighting, shopping malls, credit cards, electronic broadcasting - ensured the mass popularity of this 1888 novel. But however rich in fantasy and romance, Looking Backward is a passionate attach on the social ills of nineteenth-century industrialism and a plea for social reform and moral renewal. In her introduction, Cecelia Tichi discusses how the novel echoes the anguish and hopes of its own age while it embodies a sustaining myth of the American literary tradition-that man's perfectibility is attainable in the New World.

About this title

Review:

"This edition is extremely welcome. The introduction is clear and accessible, and both situates the text historically and stresses its continuing relevance. Above all, the additional texts provide supporting material that makes this edition a truly invaluable resource."--Ruth Levitas

"This edition is set apart from all other editions by Alex MacDonald's excellent introduction and annotations and an excellent selection of related texts."--Lyman Tower Sargent, editor of Utopian Studies

"There is no better book than Looking Backward for understanding the intersecting private and public spheres in Victorian America. This is easily the best edition on the market, thanks to the fine introduction that puts Bellamy in the sweep of utopian writing, the nice selection of contemporary responses, and the excerpts from Bellamy's 'Religion of Solidarity' and Equality."--Richard Fox

"There is no better book than Looking Backward for understanding the intersecting private and public spheres in Victorian America. This is easily the best edition on the market, thanks to the fine introduction that puts Bellamy in the sweep of utopian writing, the nice selection of contemporary responses, and the excerpts from Bellamy's 'Religion of Solidarity' and Equality." -- Richard Fox, University of Southern California

"This edition is set apart from all other editions by Alex MacDonald's excellent introduction and annotations and an excellent selection of related texts." -- Lyman Tower Sargent, University of Missouri-St. Louis, Editor of Utopian Studies

"This edition is extremely welcome. The introduction is clear and accessible, and both situates the text historically and stresses its continuing relevance. Above all, the additional texts provide supporting material that makes this edition a truly invaluable resource." -- Ruth Levitas, University of Bristol

"There is no better book than Looking Backward for understanding the intersecting private and public spheres in Victorian America. This is easily the best edition on the market, thanks to the fine introduction that puts Bellamy in the sweep of utopian writing, the nice selection of contemporary responses, and the excerpts from Bellamy's 'Religion of Solidarity' and Equality." -- Richard Fox, University of Southern California

"This edition is set apart from all other editions by Alex MacDonald's excellent introduction and annotations and an excellent selection of related texts." -- Lyman Tower Sargent, University of Missouri-St. Louis, Editor of Utopian Studies

"This edition is extremely welcome. The introduction is clear and accessible, and both situates the text historically and stresses its continuing relevance. Above all, the additional texts provide supporting material that makes this edition a truly invaluable resource." -- Ruth Levitas, University of Bristol

From the Publisher:

The Broadview Editions series is an effort to represent the ever-changing canon of literature in English by bringing together texts long regarded as classics with valuable, lesser-known literature. Newly type-set and produced on high-quality paper in trade paperback format, the Broadview Editions series is a delight to handle as well as to read.

Each volume includes a full introduction, chronology, bibliography, and explanatory notes along with a variety of documents from the period, giving readers a rich sense of the world from which the work emerged.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0140390189
• ISBN 13: 9780140390186
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 234
• Editor: Cecelia Tichi