Introduction

'Utopia' is a word More coined from Greek, meaning 'no place', while sounding like 'good place'. In the first book More meets in Antwerp an old sailor, Raphael Hythloday, back from his voyages, and they discuss the ills of English society: enclosures, by which 'sheep devour men', drive poor farmers to vagrancy and theft, for which they are then hanged. In the second book Hythloday describes the island of Utopia he found in the New World: there is no private property, everyone works, the working day is only six hours, gold and silver are used for chamber pots and prisoners' chains, religion is tolerated and officials are elected. The book founded the literary and intellectual tradition of utopia, in which countless readers over five centuries have sought their visions of an ideal society.