Edward Bellamy
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Edward Bellamy (March 26, 1850 – May 22, 1898) was an American author and socialist, most famous for his utopian novel, Looking Backward, set in the year 2000.
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[edit] Early life
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Social Christianity Important figures
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Edward Bellamy was born in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts. His father was Rufus King Bellamy (1816-1886), a Baptist minister and a descendant of Joseph Bellamy. His mother was Maria Louisa (Putnam) Bellamy, a Calvinist. Her father, Benjamin Putnam, had also been a Baptist minister, but had to withdraw from the ministry in Salem, Massachusetts, following objections to him being made a freemason.[1]. He had two older brothers, Frederick and Charles. He attended Union College, but did not graduate. While there, he joined the Theta Chi Chapter of the Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity. He studied law, but left the practice and worked briefly in the newspaper industry in New York and in Springfield, Massachusetts. He left journalism and devoted himself to literature, writing both short stories and novels. He married Emma Augusta Sanderson in 1882. The couple had two children, Paul (1884) and Marion (1886).
He was the cousin of Francis Bellamy, most famous for creating the Pledge of Allegiance.
His books include Dr. Heidenhoff's Process (1880), Miss Ludington's Sister (1884), Equality (1897) and The Duke of Stockbridge (1900). His feeling of injustice in the economic system led him to write Looking Backward: 2000–1887 and its sequel, Equality.
[edit] Looking Backward
According to Erich Fromm, Looking Backward is "one of the most remarkable books ever published in America." [2] It was the third largest bestseller of its time, after Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. [2] In the book "Looking Backward" an upper class man from 1887 awakens in 2000 from a hypnotic trance to find himself in a socialist utopia. It influenced a large number of intellectuals, and appears by title in many of the major Marxist writings of the day. "It is one of the few books ever published that created almost immediately on its appearance a political mass movement." (Fromm, p vi). 165 "Bellamy Clubs" sprang up all over the United States for discussing and propagating the book's ideas. This political movement came to be known as Nationalism.[3] His novel also inspired several utopian communities.
Although his novel "Looking Backward" is unique, Bellamy owes many aspects of his philosophy to a previous reformer and author, Laurence Gronlund, who published his treatise "The Cooperative Commonwealth: An Exposition of Modern Socialism" in 1884.
A short story "The Parable of the Water-Tank" from the book Equality, published in 1897, was popular with a number of early American socialists. Less successful than its prequel, Looking Backward, Equality continues the story of Julian West as he adjusts to life in the future.
Forty-six additional utopian novels were published in the US from 1889 to 1900, due in part to the book's popularity [2].
[edit] Death
Bellamy died at his childhood home in Chicopee Falls at the age of 48 from tuberculosis.
[edit] References
- ^ 'Edward Bellamy's Religious Thought', by Joseph Schiffman, Transactions and Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America), Vol. 68, No. 4 (Sep., 1953), p 716
- ^ a b c Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward 2000-1887, with a foreword by Erich Fromm, Signet 1960. ISBN 0-451-52412-8
- ^ See, for example, Edward Bellamy. "What 'Nationalism" Means. The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature (1844-1898); Sep 1890; 52, 3; pg. 289
[edit] Further reading
- Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000–1887 with a foreword by Erich Fromm, Signet, 1960.
- Edward Bellamy, The Religion of Solidarity, ed. Arthur E. Morgan, Antioch Bookplate Company, 1940. Published posthumously; concerns the idea of love of man and human solidarity.
- Edward Bellamy, Apparitions of Things to Come: Edward Bellamy's Tales of Mystery & Imagination, collection of short stories, ISBN 0-88286-165-4.
- Arthur E. Morgan, The Philosophy of Edward Bellamy, King's Crown Press, 1945.
- John Hope Franklin, "Edward Bellamy and the Nationalist Movement," The New England Quarterly, Vol. 11, December 1938, 739–772.
- Elizabeth Sadler, "One Book's Influence: Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward" The New England Quarterly, Vol. 17, December 1944, 530–555.
- Matthew Kapell, "Mack Reynolds' Avoidance of his own Eighteenth Brumaire: A Note of Caution for Would-Be Utopians." Extrapolation, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Summer): 201-208. (Examines Reynolds' "utopian" thought in his rewriting of Edward Bellamy's 19th century book Looking Backward.)
- Karl Traugott Goldbach, "Utopian Music: Music History of the Future in Novels by Bellamy, Callenbach and Huxley," Utopia Matters. Theory, Politics, Literature and the Arts, ed. Fátima Viera and Marinela Freitas, Editora da Universidade do Porto, 2005, pp. 237-243.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Works by Edward Bellamy at Project Gutenberg
- Edward Bellamy at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Edward Bellamy, Francis Bellamy and the Pledge of Allegiance
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bellamy, Edward |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 26, 1850 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 22, 1898 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts |
