Essay
Utopia
Thomas More · 1516
Opening lines
Henry VIII., the unconquered King of England, a prince adorned with all the virtues that become a great monarch, having some differences of no small consequence with Charles the most serene Prince of Castile, sent me into Flanders, as his ambassador, for treating and composing matters between them.
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
An English lawyer sent to Flanders by Henry VIII meets in Antwerp a traveller who made three of Vespucci's voyages. They first speak of England: peasants driven from their lands by sheep, thieves hanged up to twenty on the same gallows for stealing enough to eat. The traveller says he knows an island where none of this exists, and he describes it: no one there owns anything of his own, people work six hours, elect their magistrates and tolerate almost all beliefs.
Context
The book was written in Latin, its second part, which describes the island, for the most part before the first, which carries the indictment of enclosures and the hanging of thieves. It appeared in Louvain at the end of 1516, from the press of Thierry Martens, under the guidance of Erasmus and friends in Flanders, was reprinted in Paris in 1517, then in Basel in 1518 in a version revised by the author; Ralph Robinson's English translation came only in 1551, sixteen years after his death. The first edition carried an engraved map of the island and an invented alphabet. The name of the traveller who tells the story means in Greek the seller of nonsense.
Who it is for
A short book in two parts: a dialogue on England, then the traveller's description of the island.
Prizes and reception
It gave its name to a literary genre, that of imaginary societies, and an adjective to the English language.
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