[Gutenberg 22710] • The Old Folks' Party / 1898

According to Wikipedia: "Edward Bellamy (1850-1898) was an American author and socialist, most famous for his utopian novel, Looking Backward, set in the year 2000 . . . . His books include Dr. Heidenhoff's Process (1880), Miss Ludington's Sister (1884), The Duke of Stockbridge (1900), and the utopian novels Looking Backward: 2000-1887 (1888), and its sequel, Equality (1897).... 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." [3] Several "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.[4] His novel also inspired several utopian communities."