The New International Encyclopædia/Bellamy, Edward

BEL'LAMY, Edward (1850-08). An American journalist and author. He was born at Chicopee Falls, Mass., studied at Union College, and in Germany; in 1871 was admitted to the bar, and in the same year became a member of the staff of the New York Evening Post. Subsequently he was a critic and editorial writer for the Springfield (Mass.) Union, and with others established at Springfield the Daily News. His best-known work is Looking Backward; or, 2000-1887 (1888), which has had an extraordinary sale, and has been translated into many languages. Although not written for such a purpose, the book was extensively received as a gospel of Socialism, and led to the organization of many Bellamy clubs, and of the Nationalist Party, in the promotion of which Bellamy himself was active as a writer and lecturer. Equality (1897), the sequel to Looking Backward, is an inferior volume on similar lines. Bellamy further published sociological essays, short stories, and some longer works of fiction, including Dr. Heidenhoff's Process (1879); Miss Ludington's Sister (1884); and The Duke of Stockbridge, the last appearing three year's after his death, which occurred on May 22, 1898, at Chicopee Falls. W. D. Howells has declared that in Bellamy America is “rich in a romantic imagination surpassed only by that of Hawthorne.”