List of utopian literature  

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This is a list of utopian literature. A utopia is a community or society possessing highly desirable or perfect qualities. It is a common literary theme, especially in speculative fiction and science fiction.

Pre-17th century

The word "utopia" was coined in Greek language by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, but the genre has roots dating back to antiquity.

• The Republic (ca. 380 BC) by Plato - One of the earliest conceptions of a utopia.
• Sacred History (4th century BC) by Euhemerus - Describes the rational island paradise of Panchaea
• Islands of the Sun by Iambulos - Utopian novel describing the features and inhabitants of the title Islands
• Tao Hua Yuan (The Peach Blossom Spring) (421 AD) by Tao Yuanming
• Al-Madina al-Fadila by Al-Farabi (874-950) - Represents religion as a symbolic rendering of truth, and, like Plato, saw it as the duty of the philosopher to provide guidance to the state.
• Utopia (1516) by Thomas More.
• La Città felice (1553) by Francesco Patrizi.

17th-19th centuries

• The City of the Sun (1623) by Tommaso Campanella - Depicts a theocratic and egalitarian society.
• New Atlantis (1627) by Sir Francis Bacon
• The Law of Freedom in a Platform (1652) by Gerrard Winstanley.
• The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) by James Harrington - Conceived an ideal constitution for a utopian republic in which a balanced allocation of land ensured a balanced government.
• The Blazing World (1666) by Margaret Cavendish - Describes a utopian society in a story mixing science-fiction, adventure, and autobiography.
• The Isle of Pines (1668) by Henry Neville - Five people are shipwrecked on an idyllic island in the Southern Hemisphere.
• Supplément au voyage de Bougainville (1772) by Denis Diderot - A set of philosophical dialogues written by Denis Diderot, inspired by Louis Antoine de Bougainville's Voyage autour du monde. Diderot presents Bougainville's descriptions of Tahiti as a utopia, standing in contrast to European culture.
• Erewhon (1872) by Samuel Butler - Satirical utopian novel with dystopian elements set in the Southern Alps, New Zealand.
• Mizora, (1880–81) by Mary E. Bradley Lane
• A Crystal Age (1887), by W.H. Hudson - An amateur ornithologist and botanist falls down a crevice, and wakes up centuries later, in a world where humans live in families, in harmony with each other and animals; but, where reproduction, emotions, and secondary sexual characteristics are repressed, except for the Alpha males and females; and, the human species is gradually dying out.
• Looking Backward (1888) by Edward Bellamy.
• Gloriana, or the Revolution of 1900 (1890) by Lady Florence Dixie - The female protagonist poses as a man, Hector l'Estrange, is elected to the House of Commons, and wins women the vote. The book ends in the year 1999, with a description of a prosperous and peaceful Britain governed by women.
• News from Nowhere (1892) by William Morris - "Nowhere" is a place without politics, a future society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.

20th-21st centuries

• Datong Shu (1902) by Kang Youwei.
• A Modern Utopia (1905) by H. G. Wells - an imaginary, progressive utopia on a planetary scale in which the social and technological environment are in continuous improvement, a world state owns all land and power sources, positive compulsion and physical labor have been all but eliminated, general freedom is assured, and an open, voluntary order of "samurai" rules.
• Men Like Gods (1923) by H. G. Wells - Men and women in an alternative universe without world government in a perfected state of anarchy ("Our education is our government," a Utopian named Lion says;) sectarian religion, like politics, has died away, and advanced scientific research flourishes; life is governed by "the Five Principles of Liberty," which are privacy, freedom of movement, unlimited knowledge, truthfulness, and freedom of discussion and criticism.
• War with the Newts (1936) by Karel Čapek - Satirical science fiction novel.
• For Us, The Living (1938, published in 2003) by Robert A. Heinlein - A futuristic utopian novel explaining practical views on love, freedom, drive, government and economics.
• Islandia (1942) by Austin Tappan Wright - An imaginary island in the Southern Hemisphere, a utopia containing many Arcadian elements, including a policy of isolation from the outside world and a rejection of industrialism.
• Walden Two (1948) by B. F. Skinner - A community in which every aspect of living is put to rigorous scientific testing. A professor and his colleagues question the effectiveness of the community started by an eccentric man named T.E. Frazier.
• Childhood's End (1954) by Arthur C. Clarke - Alien beings guide humanity towards a more economically productive and technologically advanced society, allowing humans to broaden their mental capacities.
• Island (1962) by Aldous Huxley - Follows the story of Will Farnaby, a cynical journalist, who shipwrecks on the fictional island of Pala and experiences their unique culture and traditions which create a utopian society.
• Eutopia (1967) by Poul Anderson
• The Battle of Forever (1971) by A. E. van Vogt - In miniature form, men had evolved a physiology and a philosophy of peace and contemplation.
• The Lathe of Heaven (1971) by Ursula K. Le Guin - A man is able to "effectively" dream, changing waking reality. A psychologist to whom he goes for treatment tries to use the man's talent to improve society but finds that each of his "solutions" has disastrous unintended consequences.
• The Dispossessed (1974) by Ursula K. Le Guin - The story of two planets, one very much like the capitalist, materialistic, profligate United States and the other a "nonpropertarian", anarchist society in which private ownership is unknown and people merely use as much natural resources or finished goods as they need. The two worlds are walled off (as were the capitalist and Communist world at the time of its writing). A physicist named Shevek travels between the two worlds and compares them in a literary structure much like that of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace.
• Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston (1975) by Ernest Callenbach - Ecological utopia in which the Pacific Northwest has seceded from the union to set up a new society.
• Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) by Marge Piercy - The story of a middle-aged Hispanic woman who has visions of two alternative futures, one utopian and the other dystopian.
• The Probability Broach (1980) by L. Neil Smith - Presents both utopian and dystopian views of present day North America, through alternative outcomes of the American War for Independence.
• Voyage from Yesteryear (1982) by James P. Hogan - A post-scarcity economy where money and material possessions are meaningless.
• Always Coming Home (1985) by Ursula K. Le Guin - A combination of fiction and fictional anthropology about a society in California in the distant future.
• Pacific Edge (1990) by Kim Stanley Robinson - Set in El Modena, California in 2065, the story describes a transformation process from the late twentieth century to an ecologically sane future.
• The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993) by Starhawk - A post-apocalyptic novel depicting two societies, one a sustainable economy based on social justice, and its neighbor, a militaristic and intolerant theocracy.
• Aria (2001-2008) by Kozue Amano - A manga and anime series set on terraformed version of the planet Mars in the 24th century. The main character, Akari, is a trainee gondolier working in the city of Neo-Venezia, based on modern day Venice.

See also

• List of dystopian literature
• Science fiction