Utopias
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Plato (427 BC−347 BC). The Republic. Translated with notes and essays by Benjamin Jowett. Oxford: 1894. See also Plato’s “Critias” and “Statesman” in the same edition. The Laws, which is a more detailed attempt to work out the details of a good polity, is so lacking in Plato’s original inspiration that, but for Aristotle’s allusion to it, one would promptly take it for the work of another hand.
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More, Sir Thomas (1478–1535). Utopia. Published originally in Latin in 1516. There are numerous modern editions. See Ideal Commonwealths, edited by Henry Morley.
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Andreae, Johann Valentin (1586–1654). Christianopolis. Published in 1619 and translated in 1916 by Felix Emil Held under the title of Christianopolis: An Ideal State of the 17th Century. Oxford University Press. Mr. Held’s introduction contains an account of Andreae’s life.
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Bacon, Francis (1561–1626). The New Atlantis. Published in 1627. Bacon contemplated writing a second part which would deal with the laws of his ideal commonwealth. See Ideal Commonwealths.
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Campanella, Tomasso (1568–1639). The City of the Sun. Published in 1637 as Civitas Solis Poetica: Idea Reipublicæ Philosophiæ. See Ideal Commonwealths.
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Gott, Samuel (⸻). Nova Solyma. London: 1648.
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Vayrasse, Denis (⸻). L’Histoire des Sévérambes. Written in 1672 and translated into English as The History of the Sevarites, Written by One Captain Siden, London: 1675. In Kautsky’s Vorhäufer des Modernen Sozialismus this utopia is given high praise and is ranked as the French parallel of More’s Utopia; but I feel that this is a sad error in judgment which perhaps arose out of the bare fact that the first law of the great dictator Sevarias was to put all private property in the hands of the state, to be disposed of absolutely by its authority, and to do away with distinctions of rank and hereditary dignity. There is little that is fresh or imaginative in Vayrasse’s treatment, however, and there is nothing like More’s detailed effort to guard against usurpation of power by the ruling classes. As simple fiction, the History of the Sevarites is, however, readable.
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Tiphaigne De La Roche, C. F. (⸻). Giphantia: or, a View of What Has Passed, What Is Now Passing, and What Will Pass, in the World. Translated into English and printed in London, 1760–1761. This is a pithy little satire which I include in this list of utopias out of the courtesy that is due to good literature.
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Berington, Simon (1680–1755). The Adventures of Gaudentio di Lucca. This work was attributed to Bishop Berkeley and published in Dublin in 1738. It is partly a novel and partly a social criticism.
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Mercier, Louis Sebastien (1740–1814). Memoirs of the Year 2500. Published in French in 1772 and translated into English, Liverpool: 1802.
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Spence, Thomas (1750–1814). Description of Spensonia. Constitution of Spensonia. London: 1795. Privately printed at the Courier Press; Leamington Spa: 1917.
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Fourier, Charles François Marie (1772–1837). Traité de l’Association domestique agricole. 2 vols. 1822. Le Nouveau Monde Industriel. 2 vols. 1829. See also Albert Brisbane in his General Introduction to the Social Sciences (Fourier’s “Social Destinies”), and Selections from the Works of Fourier, translated by Julia Franklin, with an introduction by Charles Gide, London: 1901.
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Cabet, Étienne (1788–1856). Voyage en Icarie. Published in 1845 and numerous editions followed during the next five years; see that of the Bureau du Populaie, Paris: 1848.
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Buckingham, James Silk (1786–1855). National Evils and Practical Remedies, with a Plan for a Model Town. London: 1818.
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Bulwer-Lytton, E. (1803–1873). The Coming Race; or the New Utopia. London: 185–. A fantastic romance about a people who live underground, possess detachable wings, and command a potency known as “vril.” It is perhaps not altogether without significance that this new hierarchy of industrial angels was conceived by Lytton in the same decade that saw the building of the Crystal Palace.
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Pemberton, Robert (⸻). The Happy Colony. London: 1854. This is an appeal to the working class, somewhat similar in temper and method to Buckingham’s appeal to the middle class. Pemberton had an individual system of psychology which he desired to apply in education. This utopia has now only a limited historical significance.
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Bellamy, Edward (1850–1898). Looking Backward. Boston: 1888. Equality; Boston: 1897.
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Hertzka, Theodor (1815-?). Freeland: A Social Anticipation. First edition published in German, 1889; English translation published by the British Freeland Association in 1891. A Visit to Freeland, or the New Paradise Regained. Translation published by the above Association, London: 1894. The first work lays the foundations for the utopia; the second is the ideal commonwealth in action.
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Morris, William (1834–1896). News from Nowhere. London: 1890. There have been numerous editions.
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Howard, Ebenezer (1850–?). Garden Cities of Tomorrow. London: 1902. First published as Tomorrow in 1898. Unique among utopian books in that its eutopia has been realized. See numerous descriptions of Letchworth, the first Garden City.
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Hudson, W. H. (⸻). A Crystal Age. London: 1906.
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Thirion, Émile (1825–?). Neustria: Utopie Individualiste. Paris: 1901. This is one of the rare, deliberately individualistic utopias, founded on work, liberty, and property. It assumes that a colony of Girondists were able to establish themselves in South America.
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Tarde, Gabriel (1843–1904). Underground Man. London: 1905. A deft and well-conceived fantasy, full of excellent criticism. Towards the past it is a utopia of reconstruction, towards the future–but herein lies much of its charm!—it is one of escape.
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Wells, H. G. (1866-?). A Modern Utopia. New York: 1905.
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Cram, Ralph Adams (1863–?). Walled Towns. Boston: 1919. Dr. Cram does not classify this work as a utopia; but the honest critic cannot help giving it that label. Dr. Cram sees no basis for eutopia without the system of values and the sanctions perpetuated by the Christian Church; since this leaves the
