LOOKING BACKWARD:

FROM 2000 TO 1887

BY

EDWARD BELLAMY


    Header

  • Author's Preface
  • Chapter 1:  I first saw the light in the city of Boston in the year 1857.
  • Chapter 2:  The thirtieth day of May, 1887, fell on a Monday. It was one of the annual holidays of the nation in the latter third of the nineteenth century.... 
  • Chapter 3:  "He is going to open his eyes. He had better see but one of us at first." 
  • Chapter 4:  I did not faint, but the effort to realize my position made me very giddy.... 
  • Chapter 5:  When, in the course of the evening the ladies retired, leaving Dr. Leete and myself alone, he sounded me as to my disposition for sleep.... 
  • Chapter 6:  Dr. Leete ceased speaking, and I remained silent, endeavoring to form some general conception of the changes in the arrangements of society implied in the tremendous revolution which he had described. 
  • Chapter 7:  "It is after you have mustered your industrial army into service," I said, "that I should expect the chief difficulty to arise...." 
  • Chapter 8:  When I awoke I felt greatly refreshed, and lay a considerable time in a dozing state, enjoying the sensation of bodily comfort. 
  • Chapter 9:  Dr. and Mrs. Leete were evidently not a little startled to learn, when they presently appeared, that I had been all over the city alone that morning.... 
  • Chapter 10:  "If I am going to explain our way of shopping to you," said my companion, as we walked along the street, "you must explain your way to me. 
  • Chapter 11:  When we arrived home, Dr. Leete had not yet returned.... 
  • Chapter 12:  The questions which I needed to ask before I could acquire even an outline acquaintance with the institutions of the twentieth century being endless.... 
  • Chapter 13:  As Edith had promised he should do, Dr. Leete accompanied me to my bedroom when I retired.... 
  • Chapter 14:  A heavy rainstorm came up during the day, and I had concluded that the condition of the streets would be such that my hosts would have to give up the idea of going out to dinner.... 
  • Chapter 15:  When, in the course of our tour of inspection, we came to the library, we succumbed to the temptation of the luxurious leather chairs with which it was furnished.... 
  • Chapter 16:  Next morning I rose somewhat before the breakfast hour. 
  • Chapter 17:  I found the processes at the warehouse quite as interesting as Edith had described them.... 
  • Chapter 18:  That evening I sat up for some time after the ladies had retired, talking with Dr. Leete about the effect of the plan of exempting men from further service to the nation after the age of forty-five.... 
  • Chapter 19: In the course of an early morning constitutional I visited Charlestown. 
  • Chapter 20:  That afternoon Edith casually inquired if I had yet revisited the underground chamber in the garden in which I had been found. 
  • Chaper 21:  It had been suggested by Dr. Leete that we should devote the next morning to an inspection of the schools and colleges of the city.... 
  • Chapter 22:  We had made an appointment to meet the ladies at the dining-hall for dinner.... 
  • Chapter 23:  That evening, as I sat with Edith in the music room, listening to some pieces in the programme of that day which had attracted my notice.... 
  • Chapter 24:  In the morning I went down stairs early in the hope of seeing Edith alone. 
  • Chapter 25:  The personality of Edith Leete had naturally impressed me strongly ever since I had come, in so strange a manner, to be an inmate of her father's house.... 
  • Chapter 26:  I think if a person were ever excusable for losing track of the days of the week, the circumstances excused me. 
  • Chapter 27:  I never could tell just why, but Sunday afternoon during my old life had been a time when I was peculiarly subject to melancholy....
  • Chapter 28:  It's a little after the time you told me to wake you, sir. You did not come out of it as quick as common, sir."

Another Hypertext
from AS@UVA