How long does it take to read Looking Backward?
Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy takes about 3 hours 57 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 57 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1906. 215 pages, about 59,125 words.
8 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 6 hours 34 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 57 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 28 minutes |
The page count is the median across 9 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Bellamy's novel tells the story of a hero figure named Julian West, a young American, who towards the end of the 19th century, falls into a deep, hypnosis-induced sleep and wakes up 113 years later. He finds himself in the same location (Boston, Massachusetts), but in a totally changed world: It is the year 2000, and while he was sleeping, the United States has been transformed into a socialist utopia. The remainder of the book outlines Bellamy's thoughts about improving the future. The major themes include problems associated with capitalism, a proposed socialist solution of a nationalization of all industry, and the use of an "industrial army" to organize production and distribution, as well as how to ensure free cultural production under such conditions.
Subjects: Fiction, Utopias, Two thousand, A.D. in fiction, Social problems in fiction, Time travel in fiction, Time travel
