Edward Bellamy 21 min read

Shipwrecked on an unknown shore, a castaway finds himself among a race of people who have wholly lost the power of speech, because, over ages, they have all become perfect telepaths.

Edward Bellamy's 1889 story, by the author of Looking Backward, is a thoughtful psi-powers utopia. Elegant, humane, visionary. Read it for a beautifully imagined story of a mind-reading society where no thought can be hidden and no lie is possible, exploring, with Bellamy's characteristic idealism, how utter mental transparency might transform love, honesty, and human happiness.

In its time

Published in 1889, during the 1880s, lost races and dying earths.

Reading it

21 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).