Looking Backward is the second most successful novel to be published in nineteenth-century America, and its thunderous indictment of industrial capitalism and vision of life in a socialist utopia touches concerns still very much in evidence in the twenty-first century.
The introduction is a highly original reassessment of the novel because of its detailed consideration of its utopian transformation of the historical novel, and its investigation of the psychology of the protagonist who travels to the future.
The edition uses the second, revised edition text of the novel which made Looking Backward a bestseller, and the notes detail significant variations from the first edition.
Contains an up-to-date bibliography and chronology of the author.
