Compiled by Andy Wood (Center for Utopian Studies)

Plato's (360 BCE) Republic

More in depth information on Plato is provided by Stanford Univ. Metaphysics

Research Lab

Richard Hooker's (Washington State University) Study guide.

Finally, check out a brief section entitled, Gendered Spaces and Places in

Plato's Republic.

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Plato's (360 BCE) Timaeus

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Plato's (360 BCE) Critias

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Niccolo Machiavelli's (1515) Prince

This is an important handbook for understanding the [text missing]

I've also added a section entitled, The Armed Prophet in Machiavelli's Prince.

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Thomas More's (1516) Utopia

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The Catholic Encyclopedia's online definition of utopia

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Anniina Jokinen's More Resources Page

A reprint of a Collier's Magazine editorial from January 26, 1929

which address More. It is called All These Things Were Crazy -

"The force which made the Utopian vision of one day the

commonplace accomplishment of our generation is science."

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Richard Marius Utopia as Mirror for a Life and Times.

(keynote address at Loyola College of Baltimore)

This paper is archived at Interactive Early Modern Literary Studies.

Marius notes: "I believe that when we read Utopia dialectically,

through his other works, we may penetrate to some degree the ironic

screen that he has thrown over the work."

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Take a look at Romuald Ian Lakowski's Bibliography of Thomas

More's Utopia in the August 1995 edition of Early Modern Literary Studies.

Archive of the Interactive EMLS Thomas More Seminar.

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Tommasco Campanella's (1623) City of the Sun

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Francis Bacon's (1626) New Atlantis

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Thomas Hobbes' (1651) Leviathan

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Jonathan Swift's (1726) Gulliver's Travels

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See also, Lee Jaffe's collection of texts, dates, links, and other resources

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Voltaire's (1759) Candide

This text discusses an ironic "best of all possible worlds."

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Atlantic Monthly's (1858) The Grindwell Governing Machine

"For a good many years Grandville has been famous for a great

machine, of a very curious construction, which is said to regulate

the movements of the whole city, and almost to convert the men,

children into cranks, wheels, and pinions."

It is likely that this piece inspired cyberpunk authors William Gibson

and Bruce Sterling to write their "steampunk" masterpiece The

Samuel Butler's (1872) Erewhon

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Frederick Engels' (1877) Socialism: Utopian and Scientific

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Edwin Abbott's (1884) Flatland

While addressing questions of mathematics, this novel

provides a sharp and delightful perspective on Victorian society

and a sobering warning for those who attempt to expand their visions.

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Edward Bellamy's (1888) Looking Backward

I maintain a collection of links, excerpts, and original essays

at the Bellamy Resources page.

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L.S. Bevington's (1890) Common-Sense Country

An excerpt: "There was no sedition, because there was no

State. Instead, there was every where a most beautiful order;

for common-sense, left to itself, saw no use in a public muddle,

or in a private scramble; such as exists everywhere and all the

while in Lunatic Land. "

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William Morris' (1890) News From Nowhere

"Yes, surely! and if others can see it as I have seen it, then it

may be called a vision rather than a dream."

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David Cody (Brown University) Exploration of William Morris' Socialism.

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Utopia Limited - or 'The Flowers of Progress.' (1893)

( Music by Sir Arthur Sullivan, Libretto by William S. Gilbert)

"My subjects all, it is your with emphatic 'That all Utopia shall henceforth

be modelled Upon that glorious country called Great Britain-- To which

some add--but others do not--Ireland. "

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Sarah Louisa Bevington's (1895) Liberty Lyrics.

An excerpt: "Free to live and have my being--

Free to choose or deprecate;

Free to keep law or to mend it,

Free to recognise my mate.

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H.G. Wells' (1895) The Time Machine

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Charlotte Gilman's (1915) Herland

Gilman was greatly inspired by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Here are two

original sections which address the potentially utopian aspects of her

activism:

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Stanton's Matriarchate

- There might be some correlation between that work and Herland.

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Liberation Through the Machine

- This section addresses Stanton's strategic embrace of technology.

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Austin Tappan Wright's (1942) Islandia

I maintain a small biography along with a collection of excerpts

at the Wright Resources page.

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George Orwell's 1984 (1949)

Sadly, this text is not available online. Indeed, some schools offer it

only locally - which seems quite contrary to the spirit of this medium.

However, there are some useful resources.

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Heather Aubrey's George Orwell and the English Language

Orwell's "predictions of what problems the dangerous

capabilities of language might cause are coming true today."

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Guenter Ott's Summary of Nineteen Eighty-Four

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Ursula LeGuin's (1974) The Dispossessed

Study guide: Paul Brians (Washington State University, Pullman)

notes that "LeGuin has said she was attempting to work out how an

anarchist society would function in reality."

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Marge Piercy's (1976) Woman on the Edge of Time

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Danny Yee's review - "Piercy's portrayal of her utopia

is not didactic, and it is through the lives of the people who

live there that we really come to see the breadth of her vision."

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Margaret Atwood's (1985) Handmaid's Tale

review - a brief description with plentiful quotation of the dystopia

she posits.

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David Stephens' Essential Dismantling:

Understanding Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

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Bantam Doubleday Dell's Visit with Margaret Atwood

includes an address by Atwood to the American Booksellers

Association Convention.

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Margaret Atwood Information Web Site -

This page claims to be supervised by Atwood herself:

"We have put it together in the hope that it will help students,

scholars, researchers, and other interested parties to find

the information they require, quickly and simply."

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Paul Brians' (Washington State University, Pullman)

Study Guide for The Handmaid's Tale.

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Brittney Chenault's Atwood links page.

For another perspective, check out Joshua W Roby's utopian literature

page. According to the author: "This list is nowhere near comprehensive,

but consists of the utopian books which I have read and can talk about.

The list is in vaguely chronological order."

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As you might have gathered, there is plenty of fine literature that is

not in this collection. I am constantly on the lookout for other online

texts to add to the library. Email me if you find a link which I have

missed. I also invite any reviews of utopian/dystopian texts. Take a

look at my Handmaid's Tale review to see what I mean. You can be

critical or (as in my case) merely descriptive.