Utopia

Utopia (Gr. ou, 'not,' and topos, 'a place,' equivalent to 'Nowhere'), the name given by Sir Thomas More (q.v.) to the imaginary island which he makes the scene of his famous political romance, De Optimo Reipublice Statu, deque Nova Insula Utopia, originally published in Latin at Louvain in 1516, and translated into English by Raphe Robynson (1551; 2d ed. 1556, reprinted by Professor Lumby 1880), as well as by Bishop Burnet in 1683. More represents this island as having been discovered by Raphael Hythloday, a companion of Amerigo Vespucci, but it of course is England, its capital Amanrope, London. Its laws and institutions are represented as described in one afternoon's talk at Antwerp, occupying the whole of the second book, to which, indeed, the first serves but as a framework. More's romance, or rather satire, obtained a wide popularity, and supplied (though incorrectly enough) the epithet Utopian to all impracticable schemes for the improvement of society.