Looking Backward characters

Appears from the start

A wealthy young Bostonian of 1887 who suffers from severe insomnia. Julian has the habits and assumptions of his class but is troubled by labor conflict and the unstable social order around him. A private underground sleeping chamber is meant to shield him from noise while he is hypnotized.

Appears from the start

Julian's fiancée in nineteenth-century Boston. Edith belongs to the same prosperous social world and waits for the construction delays and labor troubles surrounding Julian's new house to end before they marry.

First appears in chapter 2

A physician in 1887 who helps Julian manage insomnia through mesmerism. Dr. Pillsbury knows the hidden sleeping chamber and is the only person expected to wake Julian after an induced sleep.

First appears in chapter 3

A Boston physician living in the year 2000. Dr. Leete discovers Julian's sealed chamber beneath his property, revives him, and becomes his patient guide to a society organized on principles unfamiliar to the nineteenth century.

First appears in chapter 5

Dr. Leete's composed and hospitable wife. She welcomes Julian into the family home and helps make his disorienting arrival in the year 2000 feel safe and ordinary.

First appears in chapter 5

Dr. and Mrs. Leete's daughter, a thoughtful young woman who takes a special interest in Julian's recovery. Her sympathy connects his lost private life to the otherwise overwhelming public transformation of Boston.

First appears in chapter 26

A prominent preacher of the year 2000 whose sermon interprets nineteenth-century inequality for a modern audience. Julian listens as Barton describes the moral blindness that allowed people to accept poverty beside abundance.