The Last Utopians
Four Late Nineteenth-Century Visionaries and Their Legacy
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
The entertaining story of four utopian writers—Edward Bellamy, William Morris, Edward Carpenter, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman—and their continuing influence today
For readers reared on the dystopian visions of Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Handmaid's Tale, the idea of a perfect society may sound more sinister than enticing. In this lively literary history of a time before "Orwellian" entered the cultural lexicon, Michael Robertson reintroduces us to a vital strain of utopianism that seized the imaginations of late nineteenth-century American and British writers.
The Last Utopians delves into the biographies of four key figures--Edward Bellamy, William Morris, Edward Carpenter, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman—who lived during an extraordinary period of literary and social experimentation. The publication of Bellamy's Looking Backward in 1888 opened the floodgates of an unprecedented wave of utopian writing. Morris, the Arts and Crafts pioneer, was a committed socialist whose News from Nowhere envisions a workers' Arcadia. Carpenter boldly argued that homosexuals constitute a utopian vanguard. Gilman, a women's rights activist and the author of "The Yellow Wallpaper," wrote numerous utopian fictions, including Herland, a visionary tale of an all-female society.
These writers, Robertson shows, shared a belief in radical equality, imagining an end to class and gender hierarchies and envisioning new forms of familial and romantic relationships. They held liberal religious beliefs about a universal spirit uniting humanity. They believed in social transformation through nonviolent means and were committed to living a simple life rooted in a restored natural world. And their legacy remains with us today, as Robertson describes in entertaining firsthand accounts of contemporary utopianism, ranging from Occupy Wall Street to a Radical Faerie retreat.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this timely analysis of late-19th-century utopian writings, Robertson (Worshipping Walt), an English professor at the College of New Jersey, presents a gallery of ideas with relevance for the present. The four writers under consideration each envisioned a more equitable society: Edward Bellamy (whose 1888 novel Looking Backwards led the trend) emphasized strict regimentation and economic equality; artist, designer, and writer William Morris was informed by his love of the medieval period, with its tradition of artisan craftsmanship and preindustrial sensibility; poet Edward Carpenter believed the "noblest instincts" of same-sex love could dissolve social hierarchies; and author Charlotte Perkins Gilman argued that female economic independence was key to social progress. Inevitably, all four had their flaws and blinders, and, in some cases, outright prejudices. Robertson smartly puts the philosophies in dialogue with each other and with larger social movements of the time, such as socialism. Ending with a survey of several modern-day self-contained communities that echo some of the earlier visionaries' ideas, Robertson leaves readers with nourishing food for thought from another era.
