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Cover art for Looking BackwardTeen

Sci-Fi & Gaming

Looking Backward

Adapted from Looking Backward (1888) by Edward Bellamy
public domain; Project Gutenberg #25439 View source text ↗
Status
Ongoing
Length
28 chapters so far · 26 scenesAbout 1 hr 15 min published so far
Updated
October 2026
Rating
TeenNo explicit content

Decoration Day, 1887. You play Julian West, comfortable in a Boston that keeps its inequalities in plain view, engaged to Edith Bartlett and waiting on a house whose foundations keep postponing the wedding date.

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First chapter · about 3 min

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About this story

You cannot sleep through the masons' noise, so you have had a sealed chamber dug beneath your own house, and tonight a doctor puts you under. Your servant has the waking procedure and his orders: nine o'clock precisely, whatever happens. The last thing you see is the iron door.

Who you’ll meet

Dr Pillsbury, the mesmerist who puts you to sleep, and Dr Leete, the physician awaiting you a century later.

How it opens

Boston wore its Decoration Day honors in public and its inequalities in every street.

The house you inherited stood above a cellar newly deepened against city noise.

Edith BartlettYou have been watching those workmen instead of listening to me.

Edith BartlettFather says the new house will finally give us a wedding date.

Mrs BartlettDates are easier to promise than foundations, Julian.

Choose

The digging has made sleep nearly impossible.

I was thinking about the house we are promised.

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