Julian West
The Bostonian of the late 1880s who falls under the spell of hypnosis and slumbers more than a century before awakening to the world of the year 2000. In the interim, America has become a socialist state. Conservatives beware: govt. control of that which is actually within the purview of the private sector in the real world of the 21st century has served to increase happiness and contentment in the world to which Julian West awakes. Not only is America a much more equitable place, but Julian even finds a woman to love who loves him back.
Edith Leete
Edith’s great-grandmother was the love of Julian’s life back in the 1880s. Through reading Julian’s love letters to Edith Bartlett she comes to fall for him with every bit of romantic helplessness as that long-gone relative. Life for Julian is good in the 21st century: Edith readily agrees to marry this man out of time.
Edith Bartlett
Back in the bad ol’ days when of rampant capitalism at the dawn of the Gilded Age, Julian also had a love named Edith to which he wrote a number of deeply passionate missives of love. When Julian went missing, Edith delivered those letters to posterity which ultimately meant the possession of a great-granddaughter namesake who fell in love with her great-grandmother’s great love. Kind of offbeat, but time travel is unpredictable.
Dr. Pillsbury
Obvious medical quackery competed with not-so-obvious medical quackery in the last 1800. For every hundred sellers of snake oil there was a Mesmer. Then there was Dr. Pillsbury who gave quacks a bad name. In an attempt to cure Julian West of insomnia…obviously a cure that needed some fine-tuning as he promptly put his patient to sleep for more than a century.
Dr. Leete
Dr. Leete is the 21st century analogue of Dr. Pillsbury who further proves that socialism works where free enterprise fails. He is a doctor who has manage to retire at the fit age of 45. While that might normally seem not particularly impressive, it is important to know that his retirement at such an early age comes not courtesy of his chosen profession, but courtesy of the infinitely efficient socialistic system: everybody can retire at 45. That early retirement was doubtlessly instrumental in providing the time necessary for Dr. Leete both to known the inner workings of practically every aspect of his own society and to find the time to relay this information to Julian West.
