‘For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.’

A classic work of socio-political satire and still widely read and studied to this day, Utopia sees a fictional traveller describe an ideal society; a vehicle for More to highlight the flaws of sixteenth-century Europe.

First published in 1516, Utopia is a political and philosophical satire presented as a dialogue between More and the traveller Raphael Hythlodaeus. Raphael recounts his time visiting the island of Utopia, where private property ceases to exist, all citizens work, and the laws promote equality, education and religious tolerance. Through this imagined society, More indirectly challenges the injustices of European politics, and cleverly reflects on the meaning of justice, governance and what it takes to create a ‘perfect’ society.

Thomas More (1478 – 1535) was an English philosopher, statesman, lawyer and author. Venerated in the Catholic Church, More served Henry VIII as Lord Chancellor from 1529 to 1532. Today, he is noted for being a Renaissance humanist, and is best known for his political work, Utopia.