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 (eutopia) or a different time in the future (euchronia). 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.

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