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.
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.
In general, utopian societies are presented as being either in a different place or a different time in the future. 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 he better is seen in Francis Bacon's New Atlantis and Tommaso Campanella's City of the Sun. Time travel is used in some novels to reveal a utopia of the speculative future.

Early "utopian" works

16th century

17th century

18th century

About 30 utopian novels were published in English in the 18th century.

19th century

20th century

  • NEQUA or The Problem of the Ages by Jack Adams – A feminist utopian science fiction novel printed in Topeka, Kansas in 1900.Sultana's Dream by Begum Rokeya – A Bengali feminist Utopian story about Lady-Land.
  • A Modern Utopia 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.
  • Beatrice the Sixteenth by Irene Clyde – In this feminist novel, a time traveller discovers a lost world, which is an egalitarian utopian postgender society.
  • The Millennium: A Comedy of the Year 2000 by Upton Sinclair. A novel in which capitalism finds its zenith with the construction of The Pleasure Palace. During the grand opening of this 100-story edifice, an explosion kills almost everybody in the world. The eleven remaining struggle to survive in a newly-class-less society without workers and servants. A few leave to create a utopian "Cooperative Commonwealth." The others go successively through periods of small-scale slavery, feudalism and industrial capitalism before most of them leave to join the co-operators outside.
  • Red Star (novel) Red Star is Alexander Bogdanov's 1908 science fiction novel about a communist society on Mars. The first edition was published in St. Petersburg in 1908, before eventually being republished in Moscow and Petrograd in 1918, and then again in Moscow in 1922.
  • Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman – An isolated society of women who reproduce asexually has established an ideal state that reveres education and is free of war and domination.
  • The New Moon: A Romance of Reconstruction by Oliver Onions
  • Philip Dru: Administrator A Story of Tomorrow, 1920-1935 by Edmund M. House. A chief advisor to President Woodrow Wilson revealed what he would do if he was "Administrator to the Republic" following a civil war in which populist forces win and Eastern U.S. plutocrats admit defeat easily. Noteworthy in that four of the progressive reforms described in the book were enacted by the President by 1915. Counsels gradual amelioration of ills, rather than state ownership.
  • The Islands of Wisdom by Alexander Moszkowski – In the novel various utopian and dystopian islands that embody social-political ideas of European philosophy are explored. The philosophies are taken to their extremes for their absurdities when they are put into practice. It also features an "island of technology" which anticipates mobile telephones, nuclear energy, a concentrated brief-language that saves discussion time and a thorough mechanization of life.
  • Men Like Gods by H. G. Wells – Men and women in an alternative universe without world government in a perfected state of anarchy 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.
  • Lost Horizon by James Hilton - British official and others crash-land and enter the mythical community of Shangri-La
  • The Green Child by Herbert Read - A novel based around two utopian societies: the fictional South American country of Roncador, which the protagonist gradually transforms into an idealized rural republic; and a fantastical underground realm venerating solitary philosophical meditation and the inanimate perfection of crystals.
  • For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs by Robert A. Heinlein – A futuristic utopian novel explaining practical views on love, freedom, drive, government and economics.
  • Islandia 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 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.
  • The Noon Universe by the Strugatsky Brothers. It has been argued that the Strugatsky Brothers created their own utopian ideology based on the primacy of science. The series starts as a "socialist utopia" in which humanity has survived crises but still has problems. The conflict is between "the good and the better." In the later books of the series the utopia gradually deconstructs.
  • Island by Aldous Huxley – Follows the story of Will Farnaby, a cynical journalist, who shipwrecks on the fictional island of Pala and experiences a unique culture and traditions that belong to a utopian society.
  • Eutopia by Poul Anderson
  • The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin - Is set between a pair of planets: one that like Earth today is dominated by private property, nation states, gender hierarchy, and war, and the other an anarchist society without private property.
  • Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston by Ernest Callenbach – Ecological utopia in which the Pacific Northwest has seceded from the U.S. and established itself as a new kind of society.
  • Woman on the Edge of Time 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 by L. Neil Smith – A libertarian or anarchic utopia
  • Voyage from Yesteryear by James P. Hogan – A post-scarcity economy where money and material possessions are meaningless.
  • Bolo'Bolo by Hans Widmer published under his pseudonym P.M. – An anarchist utopian world organised in communities of around 500 people
  • Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin – A combination of fiction and fictional anthropology about a society in California in the distant future.
  • Pacific Edge 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 Dinotopia series by James Gurney
  • The Fifth Sacred Thing 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.
  • The Giver by Lois Lowry – Set in a society that at first appears to be a utopia free of violence and severe forms of hate but turns out to be a dystopia with euthanasia of the old and young.
  • 3001: The Final Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke – Describes human society in 3001 as seen by an astronaut who was frozen for a thousand years.

21st century

  • Aria 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.
  • Manna by Marshall Brain – Essay that explores several issues in modern information technology and user interfaces, including some around transhumanism. Some of its predictions, like the proliferation of automation and AI in the fast food industry, are becoming true. Second half of the book describes perfect Utopian society.
  • The Culture series by Iain M. Banks – A science fiction book series released from 1987 through 2012. The stories centre on The Culture, a utopian, post-scarcity space society of humanoid aliens, and advanced super-intelligent artificial intelligences living in artificial habitats. The main theme is of the dilemmas that an idealistic, more-advanced civilization faces in dealing with smaller, less-advanced civilizations that do not share its ideals, and some of whose behaviour it finds barbaric. In some of the stories, action takes place mainly in non-Culture environments, and the leading characters are often on the fringes of the Culture.
  • Uniorder: Build Yourself Paradise, by Joe Oliver. Essay on how to build the Utopia of Thomas More by using computers.
  • Terra Ignota by Ada Palmer – A science fiction book series released from 2016 to 2021 drawing from renaissance humanism, the enlightenment, and the rationalist movement. Takes place in the year 2454, when the nation-state system has given way to a system of globe-spanning voluntary cultural collectives known as hives, each with their own set of laws and values.
  • 'The Promise of Peace' by Esther Smith. A dystopian book that describes a corrupt Utopian government in the future. Several characters escape a compound with the help of an experienced guide. Smith plans to write a series of books under the title The Order of Utopia.
  • Greg Egan's fiction frequently features post-scarcity transhuman societies such as the Amalgam-Aloof Universe featured in stories such as Riding the Crocodile and Incandescence, or the "polises" in the novel Diaspora.