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.
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. One reference has it that 1500 works of fiction that can be characterized as utopian were published between 1516 and 1975.Lyman Tower Sargent, Themes in Utopian Fiction in English Before Wells. https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/10/sargent10art.htm accessed April 24, 2025
In general, utopian societies are presented as being either in a different place (eutopia) or a different time in the future (euchronia). Most early utopian novels show a eutopia; many utopian works written after the seventeenth century show an euchronia, set in a future time when advanced technology allows a style of living on a higher plane. The role that science might play in transforming society to the better is seen in Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and Tommaso Campanella's City of the Sun.Frank E Manuel and Fritzie P Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (1979), as quoted in "Utopias", SFE https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/utopias accessed December 26, 2025 Time travel is used in some novels to reveal a utopia of the speculative future.
Early "utopian" works Assemblywomen (391 BC) by Aristophanes - Early piece of utopian satire. Aristophanes's play mocks Athenian democracy's excesses through the story of the Athenian women taking control of the government and instituting a proto-communist utopia. The Republic (ca. 370-360 BC) a Socratic dialogue by Plato which eventually arrives at a thought experiment of Kallipolis, the "Beautiful City" - One of the earliest conceptions of a utopia. Laws (360 BC) by Plato The Republic (ca. 300 BC) by Zeno of Citium, an ideal society based on the principles of Stoicism. Sacred History (ca. 300 BC) by Euhemerus – Describes the rational island paradise of PanchaeaPinheiro, Marilia P. Futre. (2006). Utopia and Utopias: a Study on a Literary Genre in Antiquity. In Authors, Authority and Interpreters in the Ancient Novel. Groningen: Barkhuis. (pp. 147–171). . Islands of the Sun (ca. 165–50 BC) by Iambulus – Utopian novel describing the features and inhabitants of the title Islands Life of Lycurgus (ca. 100 CE) by Plutarch The Peach Blossom Spring (Tao Hua Yuan) (421 CE) by Tao Yuanming The Virtuous City (Al-Madina al-Fadila) by Al-Farabi (874–950) – A story of Medina as an ideal society ruled by Muhammad The Book of the City of Ladies (1404) by Christine de Pizan – the earliest European work on women's history by a woman, and about a utopian city constructed exclusively by women's histories.
16th century Utopia (1516) by Thomas More which coined the modern term, referring to a "Nowhere Place". (Utopian language is used in the book.) Wolfaria (1521) by Johann Eberlin von Günzburg – a Lutheran utopia that levied harsh punishments on sinners Il mondo savio e pazzo (1552) by Anton Francesco Doni La Città felice (1553) by Francesco Patrizi A Work touching the Good Ordering of a Common Weal (1559) by Joannes Ferrarius Montanus Siuqila: Too Good to be True (1580) by Thomas Lupton Repubblica immaginaria (1580s) by Ludovico Agostini The Anatomie of Abuses (1583) by Stubbes (one of the first to imagine an imaginary country) Arcadia (or The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia) (1590) by Sir Philip Sidney
17th century The City of the Sun (later published as Civitas solis) (1602) by Tommaso Campanella Mundus Alter et Idem (The Discovery of a New World) (1605) by Joseph Hall. Written in Latin. Il Belluzzi, o vero della citta felice (1615) by Lodovico Zuccolo Histoire du grand et admirable royaume d'Antangil (1616) attributed to Jean de Moncy – detailed description of the ordering of the island of Antangil, with a classical republic and multiple checks on powerRené-Louis Doyon. (1933). Variations de l'Utopie. Christianopolis (Reipublicae Christianopolitanae descriptio) (1619) by Johann Valentin Andreae The City of the Sun (1623) by Tommaso Campanella – Depicts a theocratic and egalitarian society. La Repubblica d'Evandria (1625) by Lodovico Zuccolo New Atlantis (1627) by Sir Francis Bacon The Man in the Moone (1638) by Francis Godwin The Antipodes (1640) by Richard Brome. (the first utopia in English presenting gender role reversal) A Description of the Famous Kingdom of Macaria (1641), originally attributed to Samuel Hartlib and now to Gabriel Plattes Nova Solyma (1648) by Samuel Gott The Law of Freedom in a Platform (1652) by Gerrard Winstanley – a radical communist vision of an ideal state Gargantua and Pantagruel (ca. 1653–1694) by François Rabelais The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) by James Harrington – a constitutionalist utopian republic in which a balanced allocation of land ensured a balanced government Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon (Histoire Comique Contenant les Etats et Empires de la Lune) (1657) by Cyrano de Bergerac Chaos (1659) (one of first utopian novels to have positive statement about democracy) 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. The History of the Sevarites or Sevarambi (1675) by Denis Vairasse The Southern Land Known (La Terre Australe connue) (1676) by Gabriel de Foigny Sinapia (1682) The Free State of Noland (1696) (included positive statement about democracy) The Adventures of Telemachus (1699) by Francois de Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon
18th century About 30 utopian novels were published in English in the 18th century. Robinson Crusoe (1719) by Daniel Defoe A description of New Athens in Terra Australis incognita (1720) (a religious utopia) Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum (Niels Klim's Underground Travels) (1741) by Ludvig Holberg, Baron of Holberg. Utopian novel incorporating Hollow earth beliefs. (Said to be inspiration for 1907 socialist community at Holberg, BC). The Adventures of Sig. Gaudentio di Lucca (1737) by Simon Berington The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins (1751) by Robert Paltock A General Idea of the College of Mirania (1753) by William Smith – Describes a Eutopian educational system. This is the earliest known utopia published in the United States.Utopian Literature in English: An Annotated Bibliography From 1516 to the Present, by Lyman Tower Sargent, http://openpublishing.psu.edu/utopia/ A Vindication of Natural Society (1756) by Edmund Burke Candide, ou l'Optimisme (1759) by Voltaire Rasselas (1759) by Samuel Johnson Millenium Hall (1762) by Sarah Scott An Account of the First Settlement ... of the Cessares (1764) by James Burgh Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hundred (original title: L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fut jamais, which translates literally to The Year 2440: A Dream If Ever There Was One) (1771) by Louis-Sébastien Mercier 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. The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom (original title: Mikołaja Doświadczyńskiego przypadki) (1776) by Ignacy KrasickiBartoszyńska, Katarzyna. "Persuasive ironies: utopian readings of Swift and Krasicki." Comparative Literature Studies 50.4 (2013): 618-642. A Supplement to the History of Robinson Crusoe (1782) by [Thomas Spence]. (He was also author of Description of Spensonia (1795), The Constitution of a Perfect Commonwealth (1798), The Constitution of Spensonia (1801), and The receipt to make a millennium or happy world (). Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) by William Godwin Description of Spensonia (1795) by Thomas Spence
19th century Theory of the Four Movements (1808) by Charles Fourier The Empire of the Nairs (1811) by James Henry Lawrence (one of earliest novels to endorse free love) The Voyage to Icaria (1842) by Étienne Cabet – Inspired the Icarian movement Sibling Life or Brothers and Sisters (; 1848) by Fredrika Bremer. A view of the art of colonization, with present reference to the British Empire; in letters between a statesman and a colonist by Edward Gibbon Wakefield.Shane Chalmers, "The Utopian Law and Literature of Systematic Colonisation" Law and Literature, volume 35, 2023 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1535685X.2021.2011046
Man’s Rights; or, How Would You Like It? (1870) by Annie Denton Cridge A socialist, agriculturally-based future where women had equal rights. One of the first utopian science fiction tales written by a woman; one of first science fiction novels written by an American; one of first utopian feminist novels.Ashley Garcia, "A HEALTHY PARADISE: ANNIE DENTON CRIDGE’S FEMINIST UTOPIA" https://commonplace.online/article/a-healthy-paradise/. accessed April 24, 2025 Vril, the Power of the Coming Race (1871) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton is an utopian Hollow Earth novel about a superior subterranean cooperative society. 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
Utopia; Or, the History of an Extinct Planet, Psychometrically Explained (1884) by Alfred Denton Cridge, son of Annie Denton Cridge. One of the earliest U.S. science fiction novels 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. Looking Backward (1888) by Edward Bellamy The God of Civilization: A Romance (1890) by Minnie A. Weeks Pittock. A feminist utopian novel published under the pen name M. A. Pittock. Freeland (1890) by Theodor Hertzka 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.Gates, Barbara T. (ed.), In Nature's Name: An Anthology of Women's Writing and Illustration, 1780-1930 University of Chicago Press, 2002 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. 2894, or The Fossil Man (A Midwinter Night's Dream) (1894) by Walter Browne A Traveler from Altruria (1894) by William Dean Howells Equality (1897) by Edward Bellamy In the New Capital (1897) by John Galbraith. set in 1897 Toronto and Ottawa, then main character time-travels to 1999 when a new Ottawa is operating under utopian socialist/single tax/temperance laws.Edmonton Bulletin, Dec. 7, 1907, p. 10 The Future State: Production and Consumption in the Socialist State. (Der Zukunftsstaat: Produktion und Konsum im Sozialstaat.) (1898) by Kārlis Balodis – he adopted the pseudonym Ballod-Atlanticus from Bacon's book Nova Atlantis (1627)
20th century NEQUA or The Problem of the Ages by Jack Adams – A feminist utopian science fiction novel printed in Topeka, Kansas in 1900. The Old New Land by Theodor Herzl – A Zionist utopian novel published in 1902. Sultana's Dream (1905) by Begum Rokeya – A Bengali feminist Utopian story about Lady-Land.