Looking Backward 2000-1887 (Memorial Edition)

A nearly fine copy with light wear at spine ends and corner tips.

Memorial edition, stated four hundred and twenty-fourth thousand, of Edward Bellamy's classic utopian, socialist science fiction novel.

This copy is signed on its front page not by the author, but by two other famous people.

Exlibris and signature of Cyril G. Wates (1883-1946)- an author, mountain climber, and amateur astronomer. Wates was born in Brixton, England, graduated from Worcester Academy in 1902, and immigrated to Edmonton in 1909 where he worked for the City of Edmonton Municipal Telephone System as an engineer. He joined the Alpine Club of Canada in 1916, and climbed more than fifty peaks. He was the first to ascend Mt. Geikie in the Canadian Rockies, named Mt. Minotaur located in British Columbia, south of Geikie Creek, and was responsible for the Alpine Club's book, "Songs for Canadian Climbers". Wates served as president of the Club from 1938 to 1941 and oversaw the construction of a cabin in the Tonquin Valley in Jasper National Park in Alberta, now known as the Wates-Gibson Hut. He received a Fellowship in the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in 1939.

Wates was an accomplished amateur astronomer who served as president of Edmonton Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. He also wrote for academic journals and magazines such as Scientific American and the RASC Journal, and was awarded the Chant Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada; "for outstanding amateur contribution to astronomy in Canada" in 1943. The year before, Wates had built a 12.5 in (320 mm) reflector telescope that he donated to the University of Alberta. The telescope is still in use today at the University of Alberta Observatory. The University now offers the Cyril G. Wates Memorial Prize and Scholarship for mathematics.

Wates was also a science fiction writer. He regularly published in "Amazing Stories" His story "The Visitation" (1927) won the $500 Cover Prize Contest.

Signature of Percy Claude Byron (1878-1959) - the founder of the first photoengraving plant in Edmonton (Canada) in 1906. In 1917 he returned to his father's studio in New York, where he specialized in maritime photography. In 1935 he was the official photographer for the maiden voyage of the SS Normandie. According to Wikipedia, P. C. Byron was the premier maritime photographer of his generation.

Third, not identified signature, with inscription "Merry Christmas 1906".