SOURCE: "Edward Carpenter, Prophet of a Socialist Millennium," in Victorian Studies, Vol. XIII, No. 3, March, 1970, pp. 301-18.

In the following essay, Pierson recounts the development of Carpenter's socialist ideas, and examines their influence on a younger generation.

His Towards Democracy was our Bible. We read it aloud in the summer evenings when, tired by tramping or games, we rested awhile before returning from our rambles. We read it at those moments when we wanted to retire from the excitement of our Socialist work, and in quietude seek the calm and power that alone gives sustaining strength. We no longer believed in dogmatic theology. Edward Carpenter gave us the spiritual food we still needed.¹

The inspiration which Edward Carpenter gave to young socialists around the turn of the last century was the outcome of his own deep and painful alienation from late Victorian society. His struggle to find a...