The first-person narrator and protagonist, William, is a 56-year-man who falls asleep in his London home on an evening in 1890 and awakes to find himself transported to the 21st century. Already enthusiastic about the socialist cause, he soon discovers that, in the intervening decades, England has transformed into one version of a socialist society, where private property is no more and aesthetic pleasure guides each person’s activities and desires. He allows the people he meets to believe that he is a visitor from a faraway place—rather than a distant time—albeit one with a deep knowledge of the condition of 19th-century England. As a keen observer of the familiar and the strange, as well as a man possessed of enthusiastic curiosity, Guest is strategically placed to investigate the structure of this future, utopian England and describe it in 19th-century terms.

Guest experiences a range of emotions during his journey, from bewilderment and glee to deeper confusion and concern. His late-Victorian biases put some of the more radical features of this 21st century into relief. He has some difficulty getting used to the lack of private property and the absence of money, and on one occasion, he comments upon the unusual brightness of 21st-century clothing, a sharp contrast to the more muted colors of 1890.