The Faber Book of Utopias

Description

From the beginnings of civilization to the present day, people have envisaged Utopia - the perfect future state. These visions have come in every conceivable cultural and sexual shade: communist, fascist, anarchist, green, all-male, all-female; the list is endless. This anthology encompasses many noble and selfless schemes, as well as revealing a spine-chilling trail of folly, tyranny and attempts at social control. Introduction Holy Snakes - Anon., 'The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor', c.1940 BC Golden Ages and Elysiums - Hesiod, Homer, Ovid c.800 BC Philosophers Rule - Plato, 'Republic', c.360 BC Pure Germans - Tacitus, 'Germania', AD 98 Spartan Conditions - Plutarch, 'Life of Lycurgus', c. AD 120 Arrangements in the Beyond - Irenaeus, Lucian etc., second century AD Watching the Damned Fry - Tertullian, 'De Spectaculis', c. AD 200 In a Chinese Mountain - Tao Qian, c. AD 400 More's Conundrum - Sir Thomas More, 'Utopia', 1516 Moon Landing - Francis Godwin, 'The Man in the Moon', c.1580 Utopian Cannibals - Michel De Montaigne, 'Essays', c.1580 My America - John Donne, ''To His Mistress Going to Bed'', c.1595 Sun City - Tommaso Campanella, 'City of the Sun', 1602 The Island of Scientists - Francis Bacon, 'New Atlantis', 1627 Honours for Schoolteachers - Samuel Gott, 'Nova Solyma', 1648 The Earth Shall Be Made a Common Treasury - Gerrard Winstanley, c.1650 On Not Being a Round Quadrangle - Thomas Hobbes, 'Leviathan', 1651 Holy and Cheerful - Andrew Marvell, ''Bermudas'', c.1653 Paradise Regained - Thomas Traherne, c.1670 The Empress's New Clothes - Margaret Cavendish, 'The Blazing World', 1666 Perfect Humans? - John Milton, 'Paradise Lost', 1667 Increase and Multiply - Henry Neville, 'The Isle of Pines', 1668 Reasonable Behaviour - Denis Vairasse, 'History of the Severambians', 1667-9 Unisex Australians - Gabriel De Foigny, 'A New Discovery', 1693 Alchemists Rule - Anon., 'The Sophick Constitution', 1700 Paradise Found - Ambrose Evans, 'Adventures of James Dubourdieu', 1719 Desert Island Discontent - Daniel Defoe, 'Robinson Crusoe', 1719 How to Discourage Adultery - Ambrose Philips, 'The Fortunate Shipwreck', 1720 Horse Sense - Jonathan Swift, 'Gulliver's Travels', 1726 Wise Trees - Ludwig Holberg, 'Niels Klim's Journey', 1741 Difficulties with a Flying Suit - Rovert Paltock, 'Adventures of Peter Wilkins', 1751 The Happy Savage - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 'Discourse on the Origins of Inequality', 1754 Utopian FIshing - Anon., 'Voyage to the Centre of the Earth', 1755 Eldorado - Voltaire, 'Candide', 1758 A Pastoral Idyll - Samuel Johnson, 'Rasselas', 1759 An American in London - Anon., 'Private Letters from an American', 1769 In the South Seas - Louis Antoine, Comte De Bougainville, 'Voyage round the World', 1772 Happy Taxpayers - Louis-Sebastien Mercier, 'The Year 2440', 1771 Mathematical Perfectability - Antoine Nicolas De Condorcet, 'Sketch', 1794 Sanctuaries for Sadists - The Marquis De Sade, 'Justine', 1791; 'Philosophy in the Bedroom', 1795 Equality - Francois-Noel Babeuf, 'Defence', 1797 The Punishment Fits the Crime - Anon., 'Libellus', 1798 The Paradise of Single Mothers - James Lawrence, 'The Empire of the Nairs', 1801 The Gospel of Industrialism - Claude-Henri De Saint-Simon, 'Works', 1802-19 How to Run a Cotton-Mill - Robert Owen, 'A New View of Society', 1813-16 Passions Set Free - Charles Fourier, 'Selected Texts', c.1800-37 Head-Bumps and Destiny - John Trotter, 'Travels in Phrenologasto', 1829 Lotos-Eaters - Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1832 Plastic-Wood Paradise - J. A. Etzler, 'A Paradise within the Reach of All Men', 1833 The Joys of Sameness - Etienne Cabet, 'Voyage to Icaria', 1839 The Water Cure - Henry J. Forrest, 'Dream of Reform', 1848 The Noble Savage - Charles Dickens, 'Household Words', 1853 The Really Precious Things - John Ruskin, 'Modern Painters', 1856 A New Nation - Abraham Lincoln, 'Gettysburg Address', 1863 To a Nunnery - Gerard Manley Hopkins, ''Heaven-Heaven'', 1866 Almost Human - Edward Lear, ''The Jumblies'', 1870 Vril, Father of Bovril - Edward Bulwer Lytton, 'The Coming Race', 1871 Sick Criminals - Samuel Butler, 'Erewhon', 1872 The Withering State - Karl Marx, 'Critique of the Gotha Programme', 1875 Good Deaths - Anthony Trollope, 'The Fixed Period', 1881-2 Women in Power - Walter Besant, 'The Revolt of Man', 1882 Green England - Richard Jefferies, 'After London', 1885 The Frustration of Smith - W. H. Hudson, 'A Crystal Age', 1887 Bring Back National Service - Edward Bellamy, 'Looking Backward', 1888 A Cure for Wrinkles - Elizabeth Burgoyne Corbett, 'New Amazonia', 1889 An Ideal Ireland - Edward Joseph Martyn, 'Morgante the Lesser', 1890 Socialism for Aesthetes - Oscar Wilde, 'The Soul of Man under Socialism', 1891 Going Nowhere - William Morris, 'News from Nowhere', 1891 Suicide on Tap - Ignatius Donnelly, 'Caesar's Column', 1891 Utopian Menopause - Elizabeth Wolstenholme, 'Woman Free', 1893 The Law of the Jungle - Rudyard Kipling, 'The Jungle Book', 1894 Garden Cities - Ebenezer Howard, 'Tomorrow', 1898 Young Man Goes East - Joseph Conrad, 'Youth', 1898 Eliminating the Unfit - H. G. Wells, 'Anticipations', 1901 Progressing to the Higher Life - John MacMillan Brown, 'Limanora', 1903 Deep-Frozen Genius - Gabriel Tarde, 'Underground Man', 1905 Fish Heaven - Rupert Brooke, ''Heaven'', 1913 Virgin Births - Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 'Herland', 1915 A Surgical Cure for Imagination - Yevgeny Zamyatin, 'We', 1920 Sailing to Byzantium - W. B. Yeats, 'A Vision', 1925 Samoan Fibs - Margaret Mead, 'Coming of Age in Samoa', 1929 Imaginary Etruscans - D. H. Lawrence, 'Etruscan Places', 1932 Shangri-La - James Hilton, 'Lost Horizon', 1933 Women in Cages - Katherine Burdekin, 'Swastika Night', 1937 Christ Takes Over - Newman Watts, 'The Man Who Did Not Sin', 1939 Hitler's Russian Garden - Adolf Hitler, 'Mein Kampf', 1924; 'Table Talk', 1941-44 On Not Licking Your Lollipop - B. F. Skinner, 'Walden Two', 1948 The Worst Thing - George Orwell, 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', 1949 Men or Machines? - Kurt Vonnegut, 'Player Piano', 1953 Huxley's Hell and Heaven - 'Brave New World', 1932; 'The Doors of Perception', 1954; 'Island', 1962 Disneyland at Christmas - E. L. Doctorow, 'The Book of Daniel', 1971 Describing Venice - Italo Calvino, 'Invisible Cities', 1972 Space Potatoes - Freeman J. Dyson, 'J. D. Bernal Lecture', 1972 Infertile Solution - Naomi Mitchison, 'Solution Three', 1975 Mixed Motherhood - Marge Piercy, 'Woman on the Edge of Time', 1979 Having What You Want - Julian Barnes, 'A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters', 1989 The Lottery State - Barbara Goodwin, 'Justice by Lottery', 1992 What Women Want - Bernadette Vallely, 'What Women Want', 1996 Utopian Coursework - Jim Dator, 'Desirable Societies', 1996 The Intelligent Planet - Michio Kaku, 'Visions', 1998 Designer Children - Lee M. Silver, 'Remaking Eden', 1998 Acknowledgements Index of Authors Index