Then Beggars Could Ride — Ray Faraday Nelson

For most of his life, Newton McClintok had lived in the Americal flapper era. He might have been an ancient Roman or a Victorian Englishman. He could have lived his life in any time or place he chose -- or at least, an almost perfect replica of it. But for Newton McClintok, life in this dream world brought only discontentment. After an unsuccessful suicide attempted, he embarked on a journey through the ages to find his own special Utopia -- only to discover that the journey never ends! A classic science fiction novel from the author of The Ecolog and TimeQuest.