''A Modern Utopia'' is a 1905 novel by

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

Michael Sherborne, ''H.G. Wells: Another Kind of Life'' (Peter Owen, 2010), p. 165. The novel is best known for its notion that a voluntary order of nobility known as the Samurai could effectively rule a "kinetic and not static"

world state World government is the concept of a single political authority with jurisdiction over all humanity. It is conceived in a variety of forms, from tyrannical to democratic, which reflects its wide array of proponents and detractors. A world gove ...

so as to solve "the problem of combining progress with political stability".

Conception of the work

In his preface Wells forecasts (incorrectly) that ''A Modern Utopia'' would be the last of a series of volumes on social problems that he began in 1901 with ''

Anticipations ''Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought'', generally known as ''Anticipations'', was written by H.G. Wells at the age of 34. He later called the book, which became a bestseller, "the keys ...

'' and that included ''

Mankind in the Making ''Mankind in the Making'' (1903) is H.G. Wells's sequel to '' Anticipations'' (1901). ''Mankind in the Making'' analyzes the "process" of "man's making," i.e. "the great complex of circumstances which mould the vague possibilities of the average ...

'' (1903). Unlike those non-fictional works, ''A Modern Utopia'' is presented as a tale told by a sketchily described character known only as the Owner of the Voice, who, Wells warns the reader, "is not to be taken as the Voice of the ostensible author who fathers these pages." He is accompanied by another character known as "the botanist." Interspersed into the narrative are discursive remarks on various matters, creating what Wells calls in his preface "a sort of shot-silk texture between philosophical discussion on the one hand and imaginative narrative on the other." In addition, there are frequent comparisons to and discussions of previous utopian works. In his ''Experiment in Autobiography'' (1934) Wells wrote that ''A Modern Utopia'' "was the first approach I made to the dialogue form," and that "the trend towards dialogue, like the basal notion of the Samurai, marks my debt to

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

. ''A Modern Utopia'', quite as much as that of More, derives frankly from the ''Republic''." The premise of the novel is that there is a planet (for "No less than a planet will serve the purpose of a modern Utopia") exactly like Earth, with the same geography and biology. Moreover, on that planet "all the men and women that you know and I" exist "in duplicate." They have, however, "different habits, different traditions, different knowledge, different ideas, different clothing, and different appliances." (Not however, a different language: "Indeed, should we be in Utopia at all, if we could not talk to everyone?").

Plot

To this planet "out beyond Sirius" the Owner of the Voice and the botanist are translated, imaginatively, "in the twinkling of an eye . . . We should scarcely note the change. Not a cloud would have gone from the sky." Their point of entry is on the slopes of the Piz Lucendro in the Swiss Alps. The adventures of these two characters are traced through eleven chapters. Little by little they discover how Utopia is organized. It is a world with "no positive compulsions at all . . . for the adult Utopian—unless they fall upon him as penalties incurred." The Owner of the Voice and the botanist are soon required to account for their presence. When their thumbprints are checked against records in "the central index housed in a vast series of buildings at or near Paris," both discover they have doubles in Utopia. They journey to London to meet them, and the Owner of the Voice's double is a member of the Samurai, a voluntary order of nobility that rules Utopia. "These ''samurai'' form the real body of the State." Running through the novel as a foil to the main narrative is the botanist's obsession with an unhappy love affair back on Earth. The Owner of the Voice is annoyed at this undignified and unworthy insertion of earthly affairs in Utopia, but when the botanist meets the double of his beloved in Utopia the violence of his reaction bursts the imaginative bubble that has sustained the narrative and the two men find themselves back in early twentieth-century London.

As alternate history

Researcher Michael Warren noted that ''A Modern Utopia'' was never meant to be one of Wells' landmark Science Fiction works, but was a thinly disguised sociological and philosophical essay. Placing his Utopia in an Alternate History was simply a plot device forced upon him since the world was already very thoroughly explored; unlike Thomas More or Jonathan Swift, Wells could not plausibly locate his Utopian society on an island or an unexplored corner of a faraway continent; there were none such. (...) Still, ''A Modern Utopia'' did make a very significant contribution to the genre. Alternate History of one kind or another had already been written decades earlier – but Wells seems to be the first to posit that when you make the transit to the Utopian timeline in the Alps, you find yourself in the very same spot in the other world's Alps, and when you travel in the Utopian world to an Utopian London and then cross back to our world, you find yourself on the same spot in our mundane London. This one-to-one correspondence was taken up by countless others, and is now taken for granted by any Alternate History fan – but it should be added to the great list of standard Science Fiction plot devices for which we are in debt to Wells' genius." George Butler noted that Wells did not give any detailed description of the historical development by which his Utopian world came about. Moreover, "The historical information which Wells does provide is highly misleading," such as "The reference in Chapter 9 to "''a history in which

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

had been born into a liberal and progressive

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

that spread from the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...

to the

Bight of Benin The Bight of Benin or Bay of Benin is a bight in the Gulf of Guinea area on the western African coast that derives its name from the historical Kingdom of Benin. Geography It extends eastward for about from Cape St. Paul to the Nun outlet of t ...

, and was to know no

Decline and Fall ''Decline and Fall'' is a novel by the English author Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1928. It was Waugh's first published novel; an earlier attempt, titled '' The Temple at Thatch'', was destroyed by Waugh while still in manuscript form. '' ...

''." Unfortunately, the world Wells actually depicts in ''Modern Utopia'' just does not fit this historical framework. There is no Roman Emperor reigning in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...

or anywhere else, nor the slightest vestige of an Imperial Administration from which this world order supposedly developed; nobody speaks

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

or any Latin-derived language except for the

French language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...

familiar from our world; there are recognizable English, French, German and Swiss people; we see a recognizable

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, a recognizable

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

is mentioned though not visited, and numerous

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

cities and towns are there, complete with famous historical landmarks which date to the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

; and in

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Bu ...

there is a kind of Parliamentary Assembly which evidently took the place of an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...

. Internal evidence strongly points to a history in which the Roman Empire did fall as it did in our history, Europe experienced the same Middle Ages we know, and its history diverged from ours at some later time. On the other hand, this London does not have a

Trafalgar Square Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, laid out in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre is a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson commemo ...

, and there is no city square at all at this location – suggesting that the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

did not happen, there was no

Battle of Trafalgar The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (180 ...

and no square named for it, and that London's urban development was already significantly different by the later 18th Century. (...) Tentatively, one can assume that the society of "Samurais" depicted in the book arose in the 16th or 17th Century, waged its decisive struggle against the Old Order in the 18th Century and consolidated its global rule by the early 19th – so that when we see it in the beginning of the 20th Century, it already had a century of uncontested power in which to thoroughly remake the world in its own image. (...) Use of the term "Samurai" implies some familiarity with

Japanese culture The culture of Japan has changed greatly over the millennia, from the country's prehistoric Jōmon period, to its contemporary modern culture, which absorbs influences from Asia and other regions of the world. Historical overview The ance ...

and society. However, these "Samurais" have only the most loose and vague resemblance to the historical

Samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

Feudal Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to Japanese Paleolithic, prehistoric times around 30,000 BC. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millenni ...

; what we see is clearly an institution founded by Westerners, borrowing a Japanese term for their own purposes."

Utopian economics

The world shares the same language, coinage, customs, and laws, and freedom of movement is general. Some personal property is allowed, but "all natural sources of force, and indeed all strictly natural products" are "inalienably vested in the local authorities" occupying "areas as large sometimes as half England." The World State is "the sole landowner of the earth." Units of currency are based on units of energy, so that "employment would constantly shift into the areas where energy was cheap." Humanity has been almost entirely liberated from the need for physical labor: "There appears to be no limit to the invasion of life by the machine."

The samurai and Utopian society

The narrator's double describes the ascetic Rule by which the samurai live: it includes a ban on alcohol and drugs, and a mandatory annual one-week solitary ramble in the wilderness. He also explains the social theory of Utopia, which distinguished four "main classes of mind": The Poietic, the Kinetic, the Dull, and the Base. Poietic minds are creative or inventive; kinetic minds are able but not particularly inventive; the Dull have "inadequate imagination," and the Base are mired in egotism and lack "moral sense."

The relations of the sexes

There is extensive discussion of gender roles in ''A Modern Utopia,'' but no recognition of the existence of homosexuality. A chapter entitled "Women in a Modern Utopia" makes it clear that women are to be as free as men. Motherhood is subsidized by the state. Only those who can support themselves can marry, women at 21 and men at 26 or 27. Marriages that remain childless "expire" after a term of three to five years, but the partners may marry again if they choose.

Race in Utopia

''A Modern Utopia'' is also notable for Chapter 10 ("Race in Utopia"), an enlightened discussion of

race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

. Contemporary racialist discourse is condemned as crude, ignorant, and extravagant. "For my own part I am disposed to discount all adverse judgments and all statements of insurmountable differences between race and race."

Meat

The narrator is told, "In all the round world of Utopia there is no meat. There used to be. But now we cannot stand the thought of slaughter-houses. And, in a population that is all educated, and at about the same level of physical refinement, it is practically impossible to find anyone who will hew a dead ox or pig. We never settled the hygienic question of meat-eating at all. This other aspect decided us. I can still remember, as a boy, the rejoicings over the closing of the last slaughter-house." Members of the Utopian society still consume fish, however, and no rational explanation is offered for the discrepancy.

Cats, dogs and horses

It is noted that the Utopian society embarked on "a systematic world-wide attempt to destroy for ever a great number of contagious and infectious diseases." This involved not only the elimination of rats and mice, but also – "for a time at any rate" – "a stringent suppression of the free movement of familiar animals," i.e.: "the race of cats and dogs – providing, as it does, living fastnesses to which such diseases as plague, influenza, catarrhs and the like, can retreat to sally forth again – must pass for a time out of freedom, and the filth made by horses and the other brutes of the highway vanish from the face of the earth." There are no cats or dogs to be seen anywhere in the Utopian cities. It is not specified what happened to the dogs, cats and horses living in the world when this change took place and whether some of them are still preserved in a location completely segregated from human society, to be reintroduced at some future date.

Exile islands

Misfits who do not fit into the Utopian society are regularly exiled to islands and there left to their own devices. They may perpetuate institutions and social behaviors considered long obsolete elsewhere. For example, they may erect

Customs Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...

barriers and impose customs duties on goods imported to their islands, while the rest of the world has long since become a single economic zone. This concept of "islands of exile" was later taken up by Aldus Huxley in ''

Brave New World ''Brave New World'' is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarch ...

'' – but with a reversed value judgement. Where Wells presented a positive Utopian society exiling incorrigible reactionaries, Huxley had a Dystopian regime exiling creative people who rebel against its stifling rule.

Origins

The work was partly inspired by a trip to the

Alps The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...

Wells made with his friend

Graham Wallas Graham Wallas (31 May 1858 – 9 August 1932) was an English socialist, social psychologist, educationalist, a leader of the Fabian Society and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Biography Born in Monkwearmouth, Sunderland, Walla ...

, a prominent member of the

Fabian Society The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fa ...

Reception

Several Samurai societies were formed in response to ''A Modern Utopia'', and Wells met members of one of them in April 1907 at the New Reform Club. At a memorial service at the

Royal Institution The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...

on 30 October 1946, two and a half months after Wells's death,

William Beveridge William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge, (5 March 1879 – 16 March 1963) was a British economist and Liberal politician who was a progressive and social reformer who played a central role in designing the British welfare state. His 194 ...

read passages from the book and called it the work that had influenced him the most. According to

Vincent Brome Vincent Brome (14 July 1910 – 16 October 2004) was an English writer, who gradually established himself as a man of letters. He is best known for a series of biographies of politicians, writers and followers of Sigmund Freud. He also wrote nu ...

, Wells's first comprehensive biographer after his death, it was widely read by university students and "released hundreds of young people into sexual adventure." W. Warren Wagar praised it, describing it and Wells's other utopian novels (''

Men Like Gods ''Men Like Gods'' (1923) is a novel, referred to by the author as a "scientific fantasy", by English writer H. G. Wells. It features a utopia located in a parallel universe. Plot summary ''Men Like Gods'' is set in the summer of 1921. Its pr ...

'' and ''

The Shape of Things to Come ''The Shape of Things to Come'' is a work of science fiction by British writer H. G. Wells, published in 1933. It takes the form of a future history which ends in 2106. Synopsis A long economic slump causes a major war that leaves Europe dev ...

'') as "landmarks in that extraordinarily difficult genre." Indeed, ''

'' takes up many themes of the earlier book, also depicting a self-appointed elite conducting massive social engineering and remaking of the world.

Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, ; 3 December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Poles in the United Kingdom#19th century, Polish-British novelist and short story writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest writers in t ...

complained to Wells that he did not "take sufficient account of human imbecility, which is cunning and perfidious."

E.M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly '' A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910), and ''A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous short stor ...

satirised what he regarded as the book's unhealthy conformism in his science-fiction story "

The Machine Stops "The Machine Stops" is a science fiction short story (12,300 words) by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in ''The Oxford and Cambridge Review'' (November 1909), the story was republished in Forster's ''The Eternal Moment and Other Storie ...

", first published only four years later, in 1909.

Marie-Louise Berneri Marie Louise Berneri (born Maria Luisa Berneri; 1 March 1918 – 13 April 1949) was an anarchist activist and author. Born in Italy, she spent much of her life in Spain, France, and England. She was involved with the short-lived publication, ' ...

was also critical of the book, stating that "Wells commits the faults of his forerunners by introducing a vast amount of legislation into his utopia" and that "Wells's conception of freedom turns out to be a very narrow one."Marie-Louise Berneri, ''Journey through Utopia'', Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1950. (p. 295) Wells's biographer Michael Sherborne criticizes the book for depicting "an undemocratic

one-party state A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system, or single-party system is a type of sovereign state in which only one political party has the right to form the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties ...

" in which truth is established not by critical discussion but by shared faith.

References

Bibliography

* Deery, June. "H.G. Wells's A Modern Utopia as a Work in Progress." ''Extrapolation'' (Kent State University Press). 34.3 (1993): 216–229. EBSCO Host. Salem State College Library Databases. Salem, Massachusetts. 18 April 2008

* "H.G. Wells." ''The Literature Network''. 1 2000–2008. 18 April 2008

* McLean, Steven. ""The Fertilising Conflict of Individualities": H. G. Wells's A Modern Utopia, John Stuart Mill's on Liberty, and the..." Papers on Language and Literature. 2 2007. 166. eLibrary. Proquest CSA. Salem State College Library Databases. Salem, Massachusetts. 18 April 2008

* Review: ntitled by A. W. S. ''The American Journal of Sociology'', Vol. 11, No. 3 (November 1905), pp. 430–431. Published by: The University of Chicago Press. JSTOR. Salem State College Library Databases. Salem, Massachusetts. 18 April 2008

* Review: ntitled by C. M. H. ''The Journal of Political Economy'', Vol. 14, No. 9 (November 1906), pp. 581–582. Published by: The University of Chicago Press. JSTOR. Salem State College Library Databases. Salem, Massachusetts. 18 April 2008

* Wells, H.G. ''A Modern Utopia''. New York, New York: Penguin Group, 2005.

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Modern Utopia, A Books by H. G. Wells 1905 British novels 1905 science fiction novels Utopian novels Chapman & Hall books Religion in science fiction British science fiction novels Novels set on fictional planets