A NOTABLE AUTHOR

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6847, 8 May 1890, Page 4

A NOTABLE AUTHOR

"LOOKING BACKWARD."

The British Weekly of a recent date gives the following description of the author of "Looking Backward "• —

In the little village of Chicopee Falls, Mass., on a rainy day the other week, a reporter found Mr Edward Bellamy, the originator and leader in the growing Nationalist movement. The celebrated author of " Looking Backward " is a wirylooking man yet in the thirties. There are but a few strands of silver in his dark hair, and his frank face is illuminated by a pair of honest brown eyes. Every lineament bespeaks kind-heartedness and geniality. " 1 was born," began Mr Bellamy, "in Chicopee Falls. My youthful days were passed in much the same manner as those o£ the ordinary boy. I had my share of the tops and marbles, fights and kites, though really 1 do not think the public will f(;el interested in any portion of my personal career. After attending school at the old Union College m Schenectady for some time I went to Germany for a year. Upon my return I studied law in Springfield, and was admitted to the bar, but did not practise. I went into the field of journalism, and in 1871 became an outside editorial writer on the 82mngfield Union. My health gave way in 1877, and I went to the Sandwich Islands ; here I remained for a year. I have always written more or less for magazines, and in 1878 I produced my first novel, " A Nantucket Idyl," which was published by tho Putnams. "Dr Hoidelhoff's Process " came next, and was published by Appleton in 1880. Pour years later the Ticknors produced " Miss Ludington's Sister/ My last book,

" LOOKING BACKWARD," which appeared in 1888, was the outgrowth of a deep conviction that the great niasa of American people are blind to the perils into which they are drifting. Up to the beginning of the present year not over ten thousand copies had been disposed of. In January last there came a boom, and since that time almost two hundred thousand copies have been sold. I have not expected any great pecuniary harvest, but I am gratified beyond measure at the broadcast seeds of warning which the book is sowing. The work has been translated into German, Danish and French, and the sales in England are quite as large as in America. Out of this book has grown a party whose aim is the nationalisation of great industries, and the ultimate conduct of all business by the people and for the benefit of the people." Mr Bellamy did not talk like a blind believer in a visionary creed,' but rather as the calm apostle of a reasonable theory. Continuing, he said :— " The coming party will be satisfied with nothing but a fraternal basis of industry, and an equality of rights and advantages. This is not a class movement. It appeals to all business men, and no one is so much interested as the small tradesmen themselves. We are not at all rabid. We are simply obeying a natural law of economics. We do not want to hang monopolists and capitalists, but we simply desire to put an end to the system which permits them to exist."