A Whole Bunch of Useless Information

Utopian Texts

Chronological List of Utopian Texts

Note: not all of these texts are necessarily 'utopias' in the strict sense (whether there can be said to be a strict sense of this term is another matter), but they all have elements of the genre - or are used in our course.

Several early modern utopian texts can be found in digital reproductions of the original editions on Early English Books Online (EEBO) and/or Gallica.

The compilers of the New York Public Library exhibition Utopia: the search for the ideal society in the western world have put together an even more comprehensive bibliography of primary texts, starting at 1516. See also the hardly less comprehensive primary bibliography of the exhibition "Utopie, la quкte de la sociйtй idйale en Occident" at the Bibliothиque nationale de France.

Antiquity

PLATO (c. 429-347 BCE), Republic (late 370s BCE)

LUCIAN (born c. 120 CE), The True History

Early Modern

THOMAS MORE (1478-1535), De optimo reipublicae statu deque nova insula Utopia (Louvain, 1516)

JOHANN EBERLIN VON GЬNZBURG (c. 1470-1533), New Statuten die Psitacus gebracht hat auss dem Land Wolfaria (Basel, 1521)

ANTON FRANCESCO DONI (1513-1574), I Mondi (1552)

FRANCESCO PATRIZI (1529-1597), La cittÐo felice (Venice, 1553)

KASPAR STIBLIN, Commentariolus de eudaemonensium republica (Basel, 1555)

FRANÐ--OIS RABELAIS (c. 1495-1553), Oeuvres (Lyon, 1558)

LODOVICO AGOSTINI (1534-1590), La repubblica imaginaria (written 1585-90)

TOMMASO CAMPANELLA (1568-1639), La cittÐo del sole (first Italian version composed 1602; first Latin version published 1623)

JOSEPH HALL (1574-1656), Mundus alter et idem ('Frankfurt' [i.e. London], 1605)

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI Part II (c. 1590), Act IV, scene 2, and The Tempest (1611)

'I. D. M., GENTILHOMME TOURANGEAU', Histoire du grand et admirable royaume d'Antangil (Saumur, 1616) [On Gallica N101920]

JOHANN VALENTIN ANDREAE (1586-1654), Reipublicae Christianopolitanae descriptio (Strasbourg, 1619)

LODOVICO ZUCCOLO, Dialoghi (Venice, 1625)

FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626), New Atlantis (London, 1627)

'DEMOCRITUS JUNIOR' (i.e. ROBERT BURTON) (1577-1640), The Anatomy of Melancholy (Oxford, 1632), 'Democritus to the Reader'

'DOMINGO GONSALES' (i.e. FRANCIS GODWIN) (1562-1633), The Man in the Moone. Or A discourse of a voyage thither (London, 1638)

[GABRIEL PLATTES] (d. 1662), A Description of the Famous Kingdome of Macaria (London, 1641)

[SAMUEL GOTT], Novae solymae (London, 1648)

GERRARD WINSTANLEY (1609-1676), The Law of Freedom (London, 1652)

JAMES HARRINGTON (1611-1677), The Commonwealth of Oceana (London, 1656)

ANON., 'Letters from Utopia' in Mercurius Politicus (London, 1659)

SAVINIEN CYRANO DE BERGERAC (1619-1655), Les estats et empires de la lune (Paris, 1657) and Les estats et empires du soleil (Paris, 1662)

MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE (1623?-1673), The Description of a New Blazing World (London, 1666)

[HENRY NEVILLE] (1620-1694), The Isle of Pines, or, A late discovery of a fourth island in Terra Australis, Incognita (London, 1668) [Wing N505] and A New and Further Discovery of the Islle of Pines (London, 1668) [Wing N509].

JOHANN AMOS COMENIUS (1592-1670), 'Panorthosia', in De rerum humanarum emendatione consultatio catholica (before 1670)

[EDWARD HOWARD] (fl. 1669), The Six Days Adventure; Or, the New Utopia (London, 1671)

JOSEPH GLANVILL (d. 1680), 'Anti-Fanatical Religion and Free Philosophy. In a Continuation of the New Atlantis', in Essays on Several Important Subjects in Philosophy and Religion (London, 1676)

GABRIEL De FOIGNY (1630-1692), Les Avantures de Jacques Sadeur dans la Decouverte et le Voyage de la Terre Australe (Geneva, 1676)

DENIS VAIRASSE D'ALLAIS (c. 1630-1672), Histoire des Sйverambes (Paris, 1677-79)

BERNARD le BOVIER de FONTENELLE (1657-1757), Entretiens sue la pluralitй des mondes (Paris, 1686)

MARY ASTELL (1668-1731), A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (London, 1694)

FRANÐ--OIS DE SALIGNAC DE LA MOTHE-FЙNELON (1651-1715), Les Aventures de Tйlйmaque (Paris, 1699)

'DR. MERRYMAN' (i.e. EDWARD WARD, attrib.) (1667-1731), The Island of Content; Or, a New Paradise Discovered (London, 1709)

[AMBROSE EVANS], The Adventures and Surprizing Deliverances of James Dubourideu and his Wife (London, 1719)

SAMUEL BLUNT, A Voyage to Cacklogalliania (London, 1727)

'MORRIS WILLIAMS' (i.e. AMBROSE PHILLIPS) (1674/5-1749), The Fortunate Shipwreck, or a Description of New Athens (London, 1720)

JONATHAN SWIFT (1667-1745), Gulliver's Travels (London, 1726)

'GISANDER' (i.e. JOHANN GOTTFRIED SCHNABEL), Die Insel Felsenburg (Nordhausen, 1731)

DAVID HUME (1711-1776), 'Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth', in Political Discourses (Edinburgh, 1752)

WILLIAM SMITH (1727-1803), A General Idea of the College of Mirania (New York, 1753)

[VOLTAIRE] (1694-1778), Candide, ou l'Optimisme, traduit de l'allemand de M. le docteur Ralph (Geneva, 1759)

SAMUEL JOHNSON, The History of Rasselas Prince of Abissinia (London, 1759)

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU (1712-1778), Йmile