Into the Tenth Millennium - [Harry] Paul Capon (1911/12-69) (William Heinemann, 1956)
Agrarian, somewhat nomadic eutopia, some of which is technically primitive (balloon transport, semaphores for communication) but is socially advanced. A catastrophe caused all metal to become useless; while this made war impossible, there was a widespread famine which produced a dramatic fall in world population. In the future population is controlled. Everyone is wealthy and self-assured. There is no government or belief in a god. Free love and one worldwide language. Initial education is with the mother (fathers are not identified) with no formal education until age forty. The author also wrote a utopian trilogy; see 1950, 1952, and 1954 Capon.
Keywords: English author; Male author

No Refuge - [Bertram] John Boland (1913-1976) (Michael Joseph, 1956)
Flawed utopia located at the bottom of a crater in central north Greenland. Good life but authoritarian under control of doctors and scientists. Lower birth rate and higher standard of living. No disease. No marriage with children raised by the state.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Pursuit Through Time: A Modern Novel of Science and Imagination - [John Frederick] Burke (1922-2011) (Ward, Lock, 1956)
In the novel a man is sent back into the past to stop the creation of an authoritarian dystopia. He succeeds and, in doing, so creates the possibility of a better society in the future.
Rpt. London: Brown, Watson, nd.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Scottish author

Shadow of Authority - Robert [Ferns] Waller (1913-2005) (Jonathan Cape, 1956)
Satirical bureaucratic dystopia. A National Publishing Authority is established to control the publication of literature.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Trap" - Kem[ys Deverell] Deverell] Bennett (1919-86) (Saturday Evening Post, 1956)
Aliens appear on Earth and abduct people from various countries around the world. One returns temporarily and explains that no one else wants to return from the alien planet, which is a cockaigne-like eutopia.
Rpt. in The Post Reader of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), 173-88; Fantasy Voyages: Great Science Fiction from The Saturday Evening Post. [Rev. ed.]. Ed. Vincent Miranda (Indianapolis, IN: Curtis, 1979), 173-88 with an editor’s note on 174; and Wide-Angle Lens: Stories of Time and Space. Ed. Phyllis R. Fenner (New York: William Morrow, 1980), 147-63.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Angelo's Moon - Alec [John Charles] Brown (1900-62) (John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1955)
Dystopia of the degeneration of the human race and the failure of a utopia called Hypoltania based on science but dependent on the labor of what were called morons. Primitivia or old Britain survives.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Before Dawn - Hanbury Pawle (1886-1972) (Hutchinson, 1955)
The novel is about the conflict between Christianity and Communism and the efforts of one man to save the world from Communism.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Bright Phoenix - Harold [Charles Hugh] Mead (1910-1997) (Michael Joseph, 1955)
Authoritarian dystopia with an emphasis on eugenics.
Rpt. London: Transworld Publishers, 1960.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Chrysalids - [John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon] [Harris] (1903-69) (Michael Joseph, 1955)
Post-nuclear war future. Religious dystopia set in Canada (Labrador). Emphasis on the traditional physical form of human beings. All plants and animals that mutate are killed. Mutant humans are killed or sterilized. Telepathic mutants develop and are discovered by a telepathic eutopian civilization that has developed in New Zealand.
Rpt. New York: New York Review of Books, 2008 with an “Introduction” (vii-xiii) by Christopher Priest. Some differences between editions. U.S. ed. as Re-Birth. By John Wyndham [pseud.]. New York: Ballantine, 1955. Rpt. as “Re-Birth.” In A Treasury of Great Science Fiction. 2 vols. Ed. Anthony Boucher (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1959), 1: 9-35.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Deep Freeze - [John Frederick] Burke (1922-2011) (Hamilton, 1955)
Only women and children are left on the planet, and a feminist eutopia is established. Conflict develops as the boys grow up.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Scottish author

The Forbidden Kingdom - Elleston Trevor (1920-95) (Lutterworth, 1955)
Children’s story where there is a high technology enclave, but the story is mostly intrigue and adventure.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

The Man With Only One Head - [Douglas Norton] [Buttrey] (1918-1994) (Rich and Cowan, 1955)
The novel focuses on the fact that after a nuclear catastrophe only one man is fertile, but, in a twist on the usual plot, he is condemned for impregnating a woman.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Panel Game" - Brian W[ilson] Aldiss (1925-2017) (New Worlds Science Fiction, 1955)
Dystopia with society organized around a consumption band, which reflects income. Television, which cannot be turned off and is primarily a means of reminding consumers of the products they are required to buy, is organized by these bands.
Rpt. in his Space, Time and Nathaniel (presciences) (London: Faber and Faber, 1957), 187-99.
Keywords: English author; Male author

A Private Volcano: A Modern Novel of Science and Imagination - Lance[lot de Giberne] Sieveking (1896-1972) (Ward, Lock, 1955)
An abundance of gold brings misery followed by prosperity and world peace.
Keywords: English author; Male author

A Sign of the Times - Robert Kee (1919-2013) (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1955)
Near future authoritarian dystopia focusing on the Inter-Governmental Regroupment Agency for Maladjusted Persons which decides who is maladjusted and "cures" them. Much humor.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Star Ship" - E[dwin] C[harles] Tubb (1919-2010) (New Worlds Science Fiction (London), 1955)
Dystopia of a multi-generation spaceship. All must die by age forty. Dueling is used to eliminate the unfit, for room, and so forth.
Repub. as The Space-Born. New York: Ace, 1956. Ace Double bound with Philip K[indred] Dick's The Man Who Japed (1956).
Keywords: English author; Male author

Tomorrow Revealed - John [Alfred Neville] Atkins (1916-2009) (Neville Spearman, 1955)
Humor about the future based on fiction. Send up of utopians, among others.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Utopia 239 - [Stanley Bennett] [Hough] (1917-1998) (Heinemann, 1955)
The novel begins in the dystopia of the 1950s Cold War and the control of scientific research. During that time, people began to establish small communities called Utopia 1, 2, 3, and so forth. Utopia 239 is a future scientifically advanced flawed utopia of complete freedom, which appears dystopian to travelers from the outside world and some of its own members. The latter establish their version of a better society in New Zealand with government, law, the military, and so forth, creating another flawed utopia.
Keywords: English author

"Vespers" - W[ystan] H[ugh] Auden (1907-73) (Encounter, 1955)
Contrasts an Arcadia and a Utopian.
Rpt. in his The Shield of Achilles (New York: Random House, 1955), 77-80. U.K. ed. (London: Faber and Faber, 1955), 74-77; his Selected Poems. Ed. Edward Mendelson (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 227-229; and in The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Poems. Volume II 1940-1973. Ed. Edward Mendelson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022), 439-441, with a Textual Note on 968-969.
Keywords: English author; Male author

When the Moon Died - [Ivan] [Roe] (Ward, Lock, 1955)
Flawed utopia. World Technocracy is a world government that governs through six scientific committees. The belief that it is a utopia meant that little new was approved. There is no central government. Believe only in the useful and live only in the present. Music only for babies and the "unsound". Servants for the upper classes all had genetic defects and were not educated.
Rpt. London: Brown, Watson, [1963].
Keywords: English author; Male author

A World of Difference: A Modern Novel of Science and Imagination - [George] Robert [Acworth] Conquest (1917-2015) (Ward, Lock, 1955)
An apparent eutopia is threatened by the government's use of technology to control people psychologically.
Rpt. (although specially labeled "not a reprint") without the subtitle New York: Ballantine Books, 1964.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

The Year of the Comet - [Sam] [Youd] (1922-2012) (Michael Joseph, 1955)
A corporate dystopia with the world divided into companies rather than nations.
US ed. as Planet in Peril. New York: Avon, 1959.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Crusoe Warburton - Victor Wallace Germains (b. 1888) (Coward-McCann, 1954)
The first section of the novel is a Robinsonade in which a shipwrecked sailor uses the material from the ship (rather more extensive and luxurious than in the 1719 Defoe original) to create a home for himself on an isolated island. He then rescues a small group of people of a lost race who, in the classic lost race scenario, had been expelled from their island by an evil prince. Then he conquers the island they had come from, is established as a god-king, and plans to create an empire.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Down to Earth - [Harry] Paul Capon (1911/12-69) (Heinemann, 1954)
Last volume of a trilogy. See 1950 and 1952 Capon. This volume focuses on the struggle to return to Earth and attempts by people on Earth to exploit the planet. The author wrote another utopian novel; see 1956 Capon.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Enterprise 2115 - [Edwin Charles] [Tubb] (1919-2010) (Merit Books, 1954)
Computer dystopia in which civilization has become too rigid from relying too much on the computers.
US ed. under the author's name as The Mechanical Monarch. New York: Ace Books, 1958. Ace Double bound with Charles L. Fontenay, Twice Upon a Time.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Long Way Back - Margot M. Bennett (1912-80) (The Bodley Head, 1954)
Future authoritarian dystopia of science in Africa whose explorers discover primitive life in Britain.
US ed. New York: Coward-McCann, 1955.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Female author; Scottish author

Lord of the Flies - William Golding (1911-93) (Faber & Faber, 1954)
Dystopia. Children left alone on a island revert to a violent, primitive existence showing that civilization is only a veneer.
U.S. ed. New York: Coward-McCann, 1955. Rpt. New York: Penguin Putnam, 1999. 50th anniversary ed. New York: Berkley, 2004. Rpt. New York: Penguin Books, 2016 with a “Foreword” by Lois Lowry (xi-xv), an “Introduction” by Stephen King (xvii-xxii) rpt. from the London: Faber & Faber, 2011 edition, “On Reading and Teaching Lord of the Flies” by Jennifer Buehler (263-76), “Suggestions for Further Exploration” by Jennifer Buehler (277-93), “Introduction to the 1962 Edition” by E.M. Forster (295-300), and “Notes on Lord of the Flies from the 1959 Edition” by E[dmund] L. Epstein (301-07). Films in 1963 directed and with a screenplay by Peter Brook (b. 1925) and in 1990 directed by Harry Hook with the screenplay by Jay [Jacqueline] Presson Allen (1932-2006) writing as Sara Schiff [pseud.]. A TV takeoff on the book appeared as on “Das Bus.” The Simpsons. Season 9, Episode 14 (February 15, 1998), written by David S. Cohen in which Bart, Lisa and other children from Springfield Elementary School are stranded on an island and are forced to work together.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Once Upon a Space - H[erbert] J[ames] Campbell (1925-1983) (Panther, 1954)
Authoritarian dystopia where people degenerate. There are some rebels.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Stand Fast Beloved City - [Martha Edith von] Almedingen (1898-1971) (Hutchinson, 1954)
Authoritarian dystopia set in a small, isolated city. A small group of people, fourteen men and fourteen women, who are known as the Centre, control everything.
Keywords: English author; Female author; Russian author

"Zahatopolk" - Bertrand [Arthur William] Russell (1872-1970) (Nightmares of Eminent Persons, 1954)
Religious dystopia.
Rpt. in The Collected Stories of Bertrand Russell. Comp and ed. Barry Feinberg (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1972), 2-110.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Welsh author

Against the Fall of Night - Arthur C[harles] Clarke (1917-2008) (Gnome Press, 1953)
Flawed utopia. A city that has stagnated regains contact with a rural, telepathic utopia that has also stagnated. Cross-fertilization helps both. See also 1990 Clarke and Benford, where Against the Fall of Night is rpt. as Part I (14-145) and 2004 Benford where the relationship among the three volumes is explained in an “Afterword.”
Rpt. as Part I (14-145) in Clarke and Gregory [Albert] Benford (b. 1941). Beyond the Fall of Night. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1990; and New York: iBooks, 2005. Both the advertising and the back cover say that the book includes the added short story “Jupiter Five,” which was first published in If Worlds of Science Fiction (Buffalo, NY) 2.2 (May 1953): 4-28, 75 and has nothing to do with the novel, but there is no such story in the book. Exp. version of “Against the Fall of Night.” Startling Stories (Kokomo, IN) 18 (November 1948): 11-70. Rev. version entitled The City and The Stars. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956; rpt. New York: Signet Books, 1957.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Another Space--Another Time - H[erbert] J[ames] Campbell (1925-1983) (Panther, 1953)
Authoritarian dystopia that limits scientific activity through the SS (Science Security), which oversees all scientific work and decides on its usefulness. But in the novel, the science goes wrong and opens Earth to the possibility of an alien invasion, and the SS agents are the good guys.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Brain Ultimate - H[erbert] J[ames] Campbell (1925-1983) (Panther, 1953)
Authoritarian dystopia. An interplanetary union is controlled by an Interplanetary Dictator and its rules are enforced ruthlessly. In the novel scientific advances in brain power enable contact with others in the universe and the dictatorship ends in cooperation with others.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Childhood's End - Arthur C[harles] Clarke (1917-2008) (Ballantine, 1953)
Eutopia brought about by aliens at the end of the existence of homo sapiens and the beginning of the emergence of a higher being.
1953 Clarke, Arthur C[harles] (1917-2008). Childhood’s End. New York: Ballantine. Exp. version of “Guardian Angel.” Famous Fantastic Mysteries (Chicago, IL) 1.4 (April 1950): 98-112, 127-29. The London: Pan, 1990 edition has a revised first chapter and a new “Foreword” (i-iv) by Clarke. DLC, HRC, L Eutopia brought about by aliens at the end of the existence of homo sapiens and the beginning of the emergence of a higher being.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The City" - [John Stephen] [Glasby] (1928-2011) (Tales of Tomorrow, 1953)
Dystopia of a domed city with an upper and an underclass and strict controls on knowledge. The protagonist discovers a way out.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Dark Boundaries - [William Henry Fleming] [Bird] (1896-1971) (Curtis Warren, 1953)
Dystopia of a world divided into Normals and Intelligentsia.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Grim Tomorrow - [Kathleen] [Lindsay] (1903-73) (Wright & Brown, 1953)
Future war from the perspective of a briefly described eutopia created by the survivors after the war. An author's note says that while fiction it is intended as a warning of what will happen unless people come together to oppose war.
Keywords: English author; Female author; South African author

House of Entropy - [Herbert James] [Campbell] (1925-1983) (Panther, 1953)
Authoritarian dystopia in which an entire planet's population is controlled by a gigantic "brain" or computer.
Keywords: English author; Male author

In the Wet - Nevil Shute [Norway] (1899-1960) (William Heinemann, 1953)
Anti-socialist eutopia. Future of the British Commonwealth. In a note the author says that he tried to imagine the Commonwealth in thirty years. Following an economic crash in the 1970s, in the 1980s Britain is poor, becoming depopulated, and socialist. Australia, Canada, and New Zealand are rich, growing, and capitalist. Socialism is described as appropriate to British conditions, but conservatives had left the country in large numbers and added to the growth of the Commonwealth countries.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Male author

"Limbo" - William F[rederick] Temple (1914-89) (Nebula (Glasgow, Scot.), 1953)
Dystopia of National Socialists ruling Earth.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Lost Valley - Hector Hawton (1901-1975) (Hodder and Stoughton, 1953)
Adventure novel with elements similar to 1933 Hilton.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Love Among the Ruins; A Romance of the Near Future. With decorations by varying eminent hands including the author's - Evelyn [Arthur St. John] Waugh (1903-66) (Chapman and Hall, 1953)
Dystopia of a dreary dingy life in the welfare state. Reformatories are the best place to live and within them the best places go to murderers followed by sex offenders.
Very slightly shorter version illustrated by Mervyn Peake published in Lilliput 32.6 (May-June 1953): 73-96.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Professor Mmaa’s Lecture - Stefan Themerson (1910-88) (Gaberbocchus Press, 1953)
Satire on human relations through the depiction of relations in a termite hill and the senses of the termites as they try to understand humans through exploring a dead body and literally digesting written works.
Rpt. Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1984 with the "Preface" unpaged.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Polish author

Space-Time Task Force - [Harold Ernest] [Kelly] (1899-1969) (Hector Kelly Ltd, 1953)
The novel is primarily concerned with an invasion from space aliens. It is set on an Earth that is divided into two societies, the Primitives (humans) and one based on specialized, synthetic beings. Cooperation between the two societies defeats the aliens, and the possibility of more far-reaching cooperation in the future is suggested.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Unborn Tomorrow. A Last Story - Gilbert Frankau (1884-1952) (MacDonald, 1953)
Presented as a eutopia. The world in the 50th century has become Roman Catholic and monarchical. Jews have converted and Protestants and Orthodox Christians have returned to the Roman Catholic Church. Very few separate nations remain. Monopolies. Chivalry. Hierarchy. No democracy. No trial by jury. Eugenics. Capitalist.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Unites" - [Jessie] Jacquetta Hawkes (1910-90) (Fables, 1953)
Dull dystopia of equality with a revolution being prepared.
U.S. ed. of the book as A Woman As Great as the World and Other Fables (New York: Random House, 1953), 97-179.
Keywords: English author; Female author

"You Can't Stop a Spaceman" - N[orma] K[athleen] Hemming (1928-60) (Action Monthly Magazine (Sydney, NSW, Australia), 1953)
Men from another planet who had explored space return to their own planet, only to discover that thousands of years had passed, and it had become a completely organized dystopia that plans to colonize Earth.
Rpt. in Dwellers in Silence: Stories and Plays by Norma Hemming. Ed. Toby Burrows (Nedlands, WA, Australia: Hilliard Press, 2010), 155-70.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Female author

"Cokaygne Fantasy" - A[rthur] L[eslie] Morton (1903-1987) (The English Utopia, 1952)
Poem. A brief modern cokaygne.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Cybernetic Controller - A[ubrey] V[incent] Clarke (1922-98); H[enry] K[enneth] Bulmer (1921-2005) (Hamilton & Co, 1952)
Authoritarian dystopia in which everyone is placed in a particular status at birth by the "cybernetic controller" or computer and stays there for life. A successful revolt produces a society that will use the technology more intelligently.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Death of Metal - [William] Donald Suddaby (1900-64) (Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, 1952)
The disappearance of all metal brings, after a period of disruption and difficulty, a return to a simpler and better life.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Earth Our New Eden" - F[rancis] G[eorge] Rayer (1921-81) (Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, 1952)
Authoritarian dystopia and revolt. Factory cities underground.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Last Adam - Ronald [Frederick Henry] Duncan (1914-82) (Dennis Dobson, 1952)
The dystopia of being the last man, but the last man finds the last woman. He chooses not to repopulate the world.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Offshore Light - Pamela [Sydney] Frankau (1908-67) (William Heinemann, 1952)
Eutopia of a simple, fairly authoritarian, ordered life, and craftsmanship. No money. The novel is divided into sections taking place on The Island and sections taking place in The World followed by a section posing the question "The World or the Island?" and ending on The Island.
Rpt. London: White Lion, 1977. US ed. as by Eliot Naylor [pseud.]. New York: Buell, Sloan & Pearce/Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1953.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Other Half of the Planet: A Sequel to "The Other Side of the Sun" - [Harry] Paul Capon (1911/12-69) (William Heinemann, 1952)
Sequel to 1950 Capon. Authoritarian dystopia set on the other side of the planet that had not been visited in the first volume. The inhabitants of the dystopia are described as savages who hope to enslave or kill the protagonists, who ultimately escape back to the civilized side of the planet. The focus is on the struggle of the space explorers to survive. See also 1954 Capon. The author wrote another utopian novel; see 1956 Capon.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Sound of His Horn - [John William] [Wall] (1910-89) (Peter Davies, 1952)
Dystopia of the success of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) and National Socialism one hundred and two years into the Reich. Breeding humans for blood sport.
Rpt. New York: Ballantine Books, 1960, with an “Introduction by Kingsley Amis (5-12); in his The Sound of His Horn and The King of the Lake (Horam, East Sussex, Eng.: Tartarus Press, 1999), 1-102 with a biographical “Introduction” by an unidentified author (vii-xii); and in The Sarban Omnibus (Np: Blackmask, 2008), 117-214, with “Forward” by Kingsley Amis (119-24).
Keywords: English author; Male author

Station 7 - [John William] [Jennison] (1911-80) (Curtis, Brown Limited, 1952)
Part of the novel concerns a matriarchal dystopia with workers treated as if they were slaves.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Age of Longing - Arthur Koestler (1905-83) (The Macmillan Co., 1951)
The novel is set in the mid-1950s when a successful U.S.S.R., now known as the “Commonwealth of Freedomloving People” or “Free Commonwealth,” has taken over most of Western Europe and is waiting for the right moment to take France.
Keywords: Austrian author; English author; Hungarian author; Male author

"Amazons of the Asteroids" - N[orma] K[athleen] Hemming (1928-60) (Thrills Incorporated (Sydney, NSW, Australia), 1951)
Gender-role reversal satire in which Amazons riding flying are horses found in the asteroid belt. They hate men and keep them subservient.
Rpt. in Dwellers in Silence: Stories and Plays by Norma Hemming. Ed. Toby Burrows (Nedlands, WA, Australia: Hilliard Press, 2010), 314-30.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Female author

Come Again - [Mary Rose] [Coulton] (1906-2002) (Peter Davies, 1951)
Historical novel with an Australian setting featuring a character like William Lane (1861-1917), the Australian labour leader), the Australian labour leader and founder of the New Australia and Cosme communities in Paraguay.
Keywords: Aotearoa New Zealand author; Australian author; English author; Female author

"Escape to Paradise" - [Alan Geoffrey] [Yates] (1923-85) (Thrills Incorporated (Sydney, NSW, Australia), 1951)
An authoritarian dystopia following atomic wars. The dystopia is enforced by the Bureau of Collective Freedom. The main characters escape the dystopia to a planet teeming with dinosaurs, which is where the story ends.
Keywords: Australian author; English author; Male author

Late Final - [Joseph Walter] [Cove] (b. 1891) (J.M. Dent, 1951)
Dystopia of a future where the human race has relapsed into barbarianism.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Red Sky at Night - Ronald [de Couves] Matthews (1903-67) (Hollis & Carter, 1951)
Communist dystopia overcome by religion with the stress on the battle.
Keywords: English author

The Richardson Story - [Edward] Francis Williams (1903-70) (William Heinemann, 1951)
Dystopia of the effects of subliminal manipulation of the populace.
U.S. ed. as It Happened Tomorrow. New York: Abelard Press, 1952.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Sonnet in the Bottle - [Alethea Catherine] [Hayter] (1911-2006) (Herbert Jenkins, 1951)
A lost race novel depicted a city of surviving Incas positively.
Keywords: Egyptian author; English author; Female author

Tomorrow Sometimes Comes - F[rancis] G[eorge] Rayer (1921-81) (Home & Van Thal, 1951)
Post atomic war conflict between mutants produced by the radiation and “normal” humans. A central computer becomes the focus of the conflict. The machine was developed in his “The Peacemaker.” New Worlds: Fiction of the Future (London) 6.17 (September 1952): 51-65; and “Ephemeral This City.” New Worlds Science Fiction (London) 11.33 (March 1955): 94-118.
Parts published earlier as “Deus Ex Machina.” New Worlds: Fiction of the Future (London) 3.8 (Winter 1950): 30-40.
Keywords: English author; Male author

2,000 Years On - [John Francis Russell] [Fearn] (1908-60) (Scion, 1950)
A man is resurrected in the future, and he is told he owns the world, which is being administered by an elite. The man sides with the non-elite.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Bandersnatch - T[homas] E[van] Ryves (1895-1976) (The Grey Walls Press, 1950)
Authoritarian dystopia in which scientists rule. Society is highly structured with “Instigators” the ruling scientists, the “Influencers” directing everyone’s life, and the “Operatives,” or manufactured automata, that do all the work. The independent minded cannot become citizens.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Furious Evangelist: Being the Memoirs of Richard Civet during a Time of Moral Breakdown and now at last set forth and edited by Hugh Hickling - [Reginald] Hugh Hickling, ed. [written by] (1920-2007) (Alvin Redman, 1950)
Authoritarian dystopia stressing party politics and the dangers of a leader with too much power and no scruples about how to use it. Defeated in the end.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Land of Forgotten Women - F[rederick] A[nnesley] M[ichael] Webster (1886-1949) (Skeffington and Son, 1950)
Dystopian lost race matriarchy that practices human sacrifice.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Micro Men - [John Francis Russell] [Fearn] (1908-60) (Scion Press, 1950)
Authoritarian dystopia. A scientist invents a ray that can make people very small or very large, and it is used by others to create and control "micro men".
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Other Side of the Sun. A Novel - [Harry] Paul Capon (1911/12-69) (William Heinemann, 1950)
Detailed eutopia based on custom. Advanced technology came slowly, and society had time to adjust. Vegetarian. No killing. First volumer in a trilogy; see also 1952 and 1954 Capon. The author also wrote another utopian novel; see 1956 Capon.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Plagiarist" - Peter Phillips (1920-2012) (New Worlds, 1950)
The story is set in a future that has rejects anything that is not quantifiable. A young boy still has an imagination that keeps getting him in trouble. Some undeveloped suggestions of significant social changes.
Rpt. without the illus. in Future Tense: New and Old Tales of Science Fiction. Ed. Kendell Foster Crossen (New York: Greenberg/Toronto, ON, Canada: Ambassador Books, 1952), 3-44.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Prison Planet" - [Sydney J.] [Bounds] (1920-2006) (Futuristic Science Stories, 1950)
Dystopia describing various exploitations of prisoners.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Rural District Council of Utopia - Neville Hobson M.C., J.P. (Ptd. Archibold & Johnsons, 1950)
Eutopia. A short pamphlet fictionally presenting an ideal Rural District Council.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Summer Day's Dream: A Play in Two Acts" - J[ohn] B[oynton] Priestley (1894-1984) (The Plays of J.B. Priestley. Volume III, 1950)
The play is set in midsummer 1975 after an atomic catastrophe which has resulted in England reverting to a simple agrarian life that is presented as a eutopia.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"U-Turn" - Eric Frank Russell (1905-78) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1950)
Science fiction story with a eutopian background of a society that allows its citizens the freedom to choose death.
Rpt. in his Somewhere a Voice (London: Dennis Dobson, 1965), 63-76. Rpt. (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1968), 65-79.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Moment of Truth - [Margaret] Storm Jameson (1891-1986) (Macmillan, 1949)
Dystopia. Shortly after World War II the U.K. entered a new war with Germany and lost. The novel concerns the internal relations among a group of people waiting for the last plane to evacuate them to the U.S., and the dystopia is very much in the background.
U.S. ed. New York: Macmillan. 1949.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Nineteen Eighty-Four - [Eric] [Blair] (1903-1950) (Secker & Warburg, 1949)
Classic repressive totalitarian dystopia. The author's original title was The Last Man in Europe. A novel on Orwell writing Nineteen Eighty-Four is Dennis Glover, The Last Man in Europe. New York: Overlook Press, 2017.
Rpt. as vol. 9 of The Complete Works of George Orwell. Ed. Peter Davison. London: Secker & Warburg, 1987 with a "Textual Note (327-41). US ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1949. Edition With a Critical Introduction and Annotations by Bernard Crick. Oxford, Eng.: Clarendon Press, 1984 with the "Introduction" (1-154), the "Annotations to the Text" (429-49), and an "Index to Orwell's Text" (456-60). Collector's Edition illus. Frank Kelly Freas with an "Introduction" by James Gunn (iii-xiii). Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1992. Centennial edition. New York: Harcourt Brace, 2003, with a “Foreword” by Thomas Pynchon (vii-xxvi) and an “Afterword” by Erich Fromm (324-37) originally published in 1984 (New York: Signet Classics, 1961) 257-67. A dramatized version was published as George Orwell's 1984. A Play in Three Acts. Adapted by Robert Owens, Wilton E. Hall, Jr. and William A. Miles, Jr. Chicago, IL: Dramatic Publishing, Inc., 1963. A graphic novel version illustrated by Fido Nesti was published in Brazil as 1984 in 2020, as Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Graphic Novel. London: Penguin, 2020; and as 1984: The Graphic Novel. Boston, MA/New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021. See also Nineteen Eighty-Four: The Facsimile of the Extant Manuscript. Ed. Peter Davison. San Diego, CA: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich/Weston, MA: M & S Press, 1984.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Watch the North Wind Rise - Robert [Von Ranke] Graves (1895-1985) (Creative Age Press, 1949)
Future medieval eutopia, which is a world of witches and warlocks ruled by the White Goddess.
U.K. ed. Seven Days in New Crete. London: Cassell, 1949. Rpt. under the U.K. title Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 1983. The U.S. edition preceded the U.K. edition by about six months.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Ape and Essence - Aldous [Leonard] Huxley (1894-1963) (Harper, 1948)
Post-atomic war dystopia. Barbarianism. Eugenic rules are in place due to mutations, and babies outside certain parameters are killed. Love is not allowed, and there are sexual orgies at specified times. Worship of the Devil. It was adapted for TV by John Finch and directed by David Benedictus, it aired as an episode of the Wednesday Play on BBC on May 18, 1966. Huxley wrote a dramatization that remain unpublished until 2019 when it appeared in the Aldous Huxley Annual: A Journal of Twentieth-Century Thought and Beyond, no. 19 (2019): 19-91, accompanied by James Sexton and Bernfried Nugel, “Aldous Huxley’s Unpublished Dramatization of Ape and Essence (1-12); their “Note on the Text” (13), and some pages of the manuscript (14-17).
Rpt. New York: Bantam Books, 1958; and London: Flamingo, 1994.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

The Bowl of Light - Edward [J.] Liston (1900-86) (Coward-McCann, 1948)
Lost race eutopia set in South America with advanced, rational people.
U.K. ed. London: Coward McCann, 1950.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

Concluding - [Henry] [Yorke] (1905-73) (Hogarth Press, 1948)
Authoritarian dystopia as background. Little detail on the dystopia, but it appears to be heavily bureaucratic.
Rpt. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1970; London: Hogarth Press, 1978; Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 2000; and New York: New Directions, 2017, with “Henry Green: Novelist of the Imagination” by Eudora Welty (v-xxi), which is rpt. from The Eye of the Story: Selected Essays & Reviews by Eudora Welty (London: Penguin Random House, 1961).
Keywords: English author; Male author

Domesday Village - Ian [Goodhope] Colvin (1912-75) (The Falcon Press, 1948)
Agrarian eutopia existing outside a deeply flawed socialist utopia that is inefficient and bureaucratic, and while it is supposed to be based on merit, it is actually an aristocracy based on heredity. The eutopia is a small town that had been missed in the reorganization and had succeeded very well using traditional methods.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Hail Bolonia! - [Digby George] [Gerahty] (1898-1981) (Peter Davies, 1948)
Satire on attempts to modernize an agrarian eutopia. The modernization fails, and the eutopia of a happy, simple life continues.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Late Night Final" - Eric Frank Russell (1905-78) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1948)
Libertarian eutopia.
Rpt in Major Ingredients: The Selected Short Stories of Eric Frank Russell. Ed. Rick Katze (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2000), 287-313.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Purple Twilight - [Arthur John] [Pelham-Groom] (1906-78) (T. Werner Laurie, 1948)
Dystopia. Mars is inhabited by an advanced but dwindling people due to an anti-marriage ideology that saw marriage as being only to men's advantage. Telepathy.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Spurious Sun - [George Alexis Milkomanovich] [Milkomane] (1903-96) (T. Werner Laurie, 1948)
A novel in which the world initially appears to have created a eutopia in which nations disarm and those countries with food feed those whose people are underfed, but then war ensues, including nuclear war. The war is ended by the youth of the world cooperating, and after the war they oust the old diplomats who stood in the way of long-term peace, and the novel ends on a hopeful note.
Rpt. as Threatened People. London: Regular Publications, nd.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Russian author

Tory Heaven; or Thunder on the Right - Marghanita Laski (1915-88) (Cresset Press, 1948)
Satire on class--"The whole population has been formally divided into the five classes that it naturally comprises" (53). Everything is provided for the highest class. No mixing among classes. Strikes illegal. Women not allowed to work.
U.S. ed. as Toasted English. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1949. Rpt. from the U.S. edition but with the original title and with a new preface by David Kynaston (v-xii). London: Persephone Books, 2018.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Back to the Future - Meaburn [Francis] Staniland (1914-92) (Nicholas Vane, 1947)
Authoritarian, bureaucratic, conformist dystopia.
Keywords: English author

The Dry Deluge - Kathleen [Cecilia] Nott (1905-99) (Hogarth Press, 1947)
Mostly disaster but includes some dystopia.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The End, A Projection, not a Prophecy - [Claude] [Van Zeller] (1905-1984) (Douglas Organ, 1947)
Eutopia set in 2045 at the end of 100 years of peace. Armageddon (See Revelation 16) and the Second Coming of Christ.
US ed. Buffalo, NY: Desmond & Stapledon, 1948.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Masterless Swords: Variations on a Theme - [William] Donald Suddaby (1900-64) (T. Werner Laurie, 1947)
Primarily dystopian but suggests the possibility of a eutopia. In the first part, "Portrait of a King" (11-88), is about Alexander the Great (356-23 BCE); the second, "The Lovely Voyage" (89-173), is about Sir Francis Drake (c1540-96). The third section, "Woman In a Red Turban" (174-251) is set in the far future and is about a woman named Cahhna who leads women in a movement for perpetual peace but is opposed by men and ultimately betrayed by women.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Peace in Our Time": A Play in Two Acts and Eight Scenes - Noel [Pierce] Coward (1899-1973) (William Heinemann, 1947)
Dystopia of Britain under Germany occupation.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Sealed Entrance. A Novel - C[onrad Lyddon] Voss-Bark (1913-2000) (Chapman & Hall, 1947)
Eutopia of evolved morality set in an isolated religious community in the mountains of Albania.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Teetotalitarian State - Somerset [Streuben] De Chair (1911-95) (Falcon Press, 1947)
Humor in which the coming of British socialism changes nothing.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Death into Life - [William] Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950) (Methuen, 1946)
Similar to other works by Stapledon in that it projects humanity into both the relatively near and very far future, to a time beyond humanity. This relatively short (159 pp) version follows "the spirit of man" from death during World War II to a period in which humans inhabit eight planets to the development of a "cosmic consciousness" into which humanity is absorbed. On the copyright page there is an author's note saying, "This fantasy is not a novel."
Rpt. in his Worlds of Wonder: Three Tales of Fantasy (Los Angeles, CA: Fantasy Publishing Co., 1949), 91-251.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Epilogue - [Patrick] Beresford Egan (1905-84) (The Fortune Press, 1946)
Satire set in post-war Britain. Includes ludicrously detailed government regulation, e.g. permission is required to laugh.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Future Imperfect - Bridget [Walsh] Chetwynd (1910-70) (Hutchinson, 1946)
Humorous gender-role reversal novel in which British men are disenfranchised in 1965 with their approval.
Keywords: English author; Female author; Welsh author

The Island Forbidden to Man - Muriel [Florence] Hine (ca. 1874-1949) (Hodder and Stoughton, 1946)
A community of women inhabit an island and forbid men to land. For a time, it appears to be a feminist eutopia, but various conflicts emerge with some of the younger women wanting to marry. The community survives as a community but with men as well as women
Keywords: English author; Female author

"The Living Lies" - [John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon] [Harris] (1903-69) (New Worlds: A Science Fiction Magazine of the Future, 1946)
Racial dystopia on Venus where there are many different skin colors.
Rpt. in Other Worlds Science Stories 2.4 (8) (November 1950): 96-130.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Mistress Masham's Repose - T[erence] H[anbury] White (1906-64) (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1946)
Young adult Gulliveriana. Gulliver brought some Lilliputians back with him, and they have settled on an island in a lake in a neglected estate. They are befriended by a young girl.
Keywords: English author; Irish author; Male author

Visit of the Princess: A Romance of the Nineteen-sixties - R[alph] H[ale] Mottram (1883-1971) (Hutchinson & Co, 1946)
Flawed utopia seen through a romance in what appears to be a dull, egalitarian dystopia but is also a society giving much better life chances to children.
Keywords: English author; Male author

What Farrar Saw - James Hanley (1901-85) (Nicholson & Watson, 1946)
Dystopia as a fantasy of post-war Britain with clogged highways and difficult class relations.
Rpt. in his What Farrar Saw and Other Stories (London: André Deutsch, 1984), 1-204.
Keywords: English author; Irish author; Male author

Animal Farm; A Fairy Story - [Eric] [Blair] (1903-1950) (Secker & Warburg, 1945)
Classic story of totalitarianism. See also 1964 Bond.
Rpt. as vol. 8 of The Complete Works of George Orwell. Ed. Peter Davision. London: Secker & Warburg, 1987 with Appendix I “Orwell’s Proposed Preface to Animal Farm” (97-108); Appendix II “Orwell’s Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm” (109-14); Appendix III “Orwell’s Radio Adaptation of Animal Farm” (115-95); and “Textual Note” (197-203). U.S. ed. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1946. First illustrated edition, with illustrations by Joy Batchelor and John Halas. London: Secker and Warburg, 1954. Rpt. with drawings by Quentin Blake. London: The Folio Society, 1984; and with an “Introduction” by Kim Stanley Robinson (iii-x) and one illus. by Frank Kelly Freas. Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1992. 50th Anniversary Edition with illustrations by Ralph Steadman. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1995, which includes “Orwell’s Proposed Preface to Animal Farm (159-71) and “Orwell’s Preface to the Ukrainian Edition of Animal Farm (173-80). The National Theatre produced a dramatization available as George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Adapted by Peter Hall with lyrics by Adrian Mitchell and music by Richard Peaslee. London: Methuen, 1985. A film was directed by Joy Batchelor and John Halas (1955). A theatre version by Ian Wooldridge was adapted by Ivan Heng for Wild Rice (Singapore). As Animal Farm: The Graphic Novel. Illus. by Odyr [Bernardi] (b. 1967). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2019. Originally published in Portuguese as A Revolução dos Bichos. São Paulo, Brazil: Editora Schwarcz S.A., 2018.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Happy Turning - H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells (1866-1946) (William Heinemann, 1945)
Presented as taking place in Dreamland, which is a eutopia. Primarily concerned with religion. Discussions with Jesus who attacks Christianity and Paul in particular. Says he did not die and spent the rest of his life as a carpenter.
Rpt. in The Last Books of H.G. Wells. The Happy Turning and Mind at the End of its Tether. Ed. G.P. Wells ([London]: H.G. Wells Society, 1982), 19-52 with an “Appendix The Writing of the Last Books” by the editor (79-80).
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Lost Government; or, Do You Really Like It? A Fairy Tale for Grown-ups - Jiri Weiss (1913-2004) (Nicholson & Watson, 1945)
Satire. After World War II a government in exile returns, finds that the people have taken over and have no need for them, and leaves.
Keywords: Czech author; English author; Male author

The Man Who Missed the War - Dennis [Yates] Wheatley (1897-1977) (Hutchinson, 1945)
Lost race authoritarian dystopia that practices human sacrifice set in a temperate area of Antarctica with a battle rather like Armageddon (See Revelation 16) at the end.
Rpt. in his Worlds Far From Here (London: Hutchinson, [1954]), 334-743; and separately London: Arrow Books, 1959.
Keywords: English author; Male author

That Hideous Strength, A Modern Fairy Tale for Grown Ups - C[live] S[taples] Lewis (1898-1963) (John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1945)
Final volume of a trilogy about the struggle between the forces of good and evil. Armageddon (see Revelation 16). Traditional marriage with the woman obedient is stressed. The other volumes of the trilogy are 1938 and 1943 Lewis. In addition, one of the major characters of the trilogy appears in 1977 Lewis.
Rpt. New York: Scribner Classics, 1996. Abr. as The Tortured Planet. New York: Avon, 1958.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Northern Ireland author

Twilight Bar: An Escapade in Four Acts - Arthur Koestler (1905-83) (Jonathan Cape, 1945)
Classic body-eutopia. According to the “Author’s Note” (6-7) it was written in 1933 in Russia and lost; he rewrote it in 1944. Both versions were “escape[s] from the pressure of reality” (7).
Keywords: Austrian author; English author; Hungarian author; Male author

Black Dawn - Shaw Desmond (1877-1960) (Hutchinson & Co, 1944)
In the dystopia of the post-war world most countries had been destroyed, but a world confederation begins to be formed led by the Anglo-Saxon Confederation.
Keywords: English author; Irish author; Male author

Fly Envious Time - Lou[ise Olga Elisabeth] King-Hall (b. 1897) (Peter Davies, 1944)
The first part describes the middle class before World War II. This is followed by two stages of the future. In 1979 an authoritarian society exists that stresses science and eugenics. Tablet food. In 1999 there is an emphasis on art, but World War III starts.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Homes or Hovels: The Housing Problem and Its Solution - George Woodcock (1912-95) (Freedom Press, 1944)
An anarchist approach to housing. The author rejects what he says are overly detailed utopias, but then goes on to give a detailed description of housing, which will mostly apartments/flats, an emphasis on neighborhoods, and few large cities.
Keywords: Canadian author; English author; Male author

The Lights Were Going Out - Arthur Guirdham (1905-92) (Quality Press, 1944)
The dystopia that will follow peace without victory with the National Socialists gaining influence over Britain and the U.S.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Old Man in New World - [William] Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950) (George Allen & Unwin, 1944)
Socialist eutopia that encourages diversity and individuality as seen by an old revolutionist who is not entirely comfortable in the world the revolution created. World federation.
Rpt. in his Worlds of Wonder: Three Tales of Fantasy (Los Angeles, CA: Fantasy Publishing Co., 1949), 253-82; and in An Olaf Stapledon Reader. Ed. Robert Crossley (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997), 42-60.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Outward Urge. A Novel - [Alec] Richard Lea (1907-2003) (Rich & Cowan, 1944)
Starts with an authoritarian dystopia with various forms of direct control and London something like a concentration camp. By the end of the novel, the worst of the dystopia is gone and, while not a eutopia, there is a good society in contrast with the recent past.
Keywords: Canadian author; English author; Male author

Peace in Nobody's Time - [George Alexis Milkomanovich] [Milkomane] (1903-96) (Hutchinson, 1944)
Satire. Dictatorship with some socialist elements like the abolition of money and the introduction of labor coupons. The stress is on going to extremes to cure social ills. Nudists were required to be nude all the time, which stopped them from being nudists. Marriage was abolished, and the people demanded its reinstatement. Pornography was legalized and disappeared.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Russian author

The Riddle of the Tower - J[ohn] D[avys] Beresford (1873-1947); Esmé Wynne-Tyson (1898-1972) (Hutchinson, 1944)
A number of past and future societies are presented from an anti-utopian perspective. The focus of the novel is on the horrors of communalism.
Keywords: English author; Female author; Male author

The 1946 Ms - Robin [Robert Cecil Romer] Maugham [2nd Viscount Maugham] (1916-81) (War Facts Press, 1943)
Describes the origins and development of a military dictatorship in England that becomes a fascist dystopia. On the last page the author says that the dictators do not exist and, "This story was written so that they never will exist and so that Britons never will be slaves".
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Adventures of the Young Soldier in Search of The Better World - C[yril] E[dwin] M[itchinson] Joad (1891-1953) (Faber and Faber, 1943)
Alice in Wonderland fantasy discussion of plans for and problems of post-war Britain. Includes both eutopian and dystopian elements with the plans of the Labour Party presented most positively.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Cities of the Plain: A Democratic Melodrama - Alex[ander] Comfort (1920-2000) (Grey Walls Press, 1943)
Anti-capitalist dystopia and revolt. A one act play showing a town run for profit with no concern for the workers who, mining radium, will die to provide a profit for the owners. See also 1961, 1980 and 1989 Comfort. While the author is best known for his books on sexual technique like The Joy of Sex (1972), his career ranged through fiction, poetry, anarchist theory, the biology of aging, and geriatric psychology. For an extremely detailed biography, see Eric Laursen, Polymath: The Life and Professions of Dr. Alex Comfort Author of the Joy of Sex. Chico, CA/Edinburgh, Scot.: AK Press, 2023. 740 pp.
Keywords: English author; Male author

A Mechanistic or a Human Society? - Wilfred Wellock (1879-1972) ([Ptd. by The Hereford Times for Wilfred Wellock, Quinton, Birmingham], 1943)
A pamphlet that decries the dominance of machines and the machine-mentality they produce. The author calls for a simpler life based on traditional English agriculture and decentralization to the village level or a “land-based democracy” (15). Cooperation. Regionalism. In his “Introduction” to the U.S. ed. Tamplin argues for the use of machines “more on the behalf of freeing and benefiting man” (2) and says, “Our society is itself a great mechanistic structure” (3). He says he is sure Wellock would agree.
U.S. ed. [New York: Decentralist Press, 1945]], with an “Introduction” (2-3) by Richard T. Tamplin.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Mr. Mirakel - E[dward] Phillips Oppenheim (1886-1946) (Hodder & Stoughton, 1943)
A small enclave during World War II that survives Earth's revolt against war. Very upper class eutopia.
U.S. ed. Boston, MA: Little Brown, 1943
Keywords: English author; Male author

Perelandra - C[live] S[taples] Lewis (1898-1963) (John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1943)
Second volume of a trilogy on the battle between good and evil. Re-enactment of the Adam and Eve myth on Venus but with no Fall. Stresses closeness to animals. The other volumes of the trilogy are 1938 and 1945 Lewis. In addition, one of the major characters of the trilogy appears in 1977 Lewis.
Rpt. New York: Scribner Classics, 1996. Rpt. as Voyage to Venus. London: Pan, 1953.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Northern Ireland author

“They Came to a City. A Play in Two Acts” - J[ohn] B[oynton] Priestley (1894-1984) (Three Plays, 1943)
The eutopia that might be possible in post-war Britain as seen through the eyes of characters representative of contemporary Britain. Only some see it positively.
Rpt. without the subtitle in his Four Plays (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944), 151-221. Rpt. as “They Came to a City: A Play in Two Acts.” In The Plays of J.B. Priestley. Volume III (London: William Heinemann, 1950), 139-201 with a brief note by Priestley on xi.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Why Was I Killed? A Dramatic Dialogue - Rex [Reginald Ernest] Warner (1905-86) (John Lane, 1943)
A dead soldier asks the question, which is discussed by seven people, with the soldier observing the discussion and the stages of each individual’s past that led them to take the position they do. In one chapter, “The New Order” (92-111), the soldier observes life under the Nazi regime and in a concentration camp.
Rpt. London: Faber & Faber, 2008.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Christianity and Social Order - William Temple Archbishop of York (1881-1944) (Penguin Books, 1942)
Nonfiction that lays out of the principles for a Christian democratic socialist eutopia after the war.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Darkness and the Light - [William] Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950) (Methuen, 1942)
Eutopia and dystopia presented as two alternative future histories. The dystopia is extrapolated from the situation as it existed in 1942. In the eutopia that situation is overcome and for a time a eutopia based on villages develops. Following that, the human race goes through periods of decline and advance until a new and higher human type develops.
Rpt. Westport, CT: Hyperion Press, 1974. Excerpts rpt. in An Olaf Stapledon Reader. Ed. Robert Crossley (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997), 28-42.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Grand Canyon - V[ictoria Mary] Sackville-West (1892-1962) (Michael Joseph, 1942)
Dystopia and eutopia. Germany wins World War II and Japan is defeated by the U.S., but peace last only briefly until Germany and Japan attack the U.S. During the attack a few people escape to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, where they create a good, cooperative society.
U.S. ed. with the subtitle A Novel. New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1942.
Keywords: English author; Female author

I Am the World. A Romance - Peter Vansittart (1920-2008) (Chatto & Windus, 1942)
Imaginary country in which a young man plans to overthrow the monarchy and become dictator. Conflict, love, and religion.
Keywords: English author; Male author

I, James Blunt - H[enry Canova] V[ollom] Morton (1892-1979) (Methuen, 1942)
Dystopia in which Germany wins World War II and sets about destroying Britain.
Canadian ed. Toronto, ON, Canada: Dodd, Mead, 1942.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"New Order" - Edward [Falaise] Upward (1903-2009) (The Penguin New Writing, 1942)
Brief description of the dystopia that develops as the result of loss in a war with some suggestion of the development of resistance.
Rpt. in his The Railway Accident and Other Stories (London: Heinemann, 1969), 220-22.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Then We Shall Hear Singing; A Fantasy in C Major - [Margaret] Storm Jameson (1891-1986) (Cassell, 1942)
Fascist dystopia set in a country that has experienced many invasions and has a tradition of resistance. The people are not allowed to sing, and the native language is prohibited in schools. The dictator approves a program of medical experiments on the people of the country intended to eliminate resistance by removing part of the brain.
U.S. ed. New York: Macmillan, 1942.
Keywords: English author; Female author

An Unknown Land - Viscount [Herbert Louis] Samuel (1870-1963) (George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1942)
An explorer comes to believe that Belsalem, the country described in Bacon’s New Atlantis (1627) must exist and searches for, and discovers, it. Here the basis for the utopia is a treatment that enlarges the brain, and in addition to the science and technology central to the New Atlantis, there is great stress on health and mental activity. All knowledge had been sifted for truth. Work consists mostly of overseeing machines. No money. The family is sacrosanct and birth control produces a stable population. Little government need; some administration. The book concludes with two appendices. The first is “A Note on the Changing Shape of the Skull” (215-216) that consists of abstracts from Sir Janes Frazer’s the Golden Bough. Vol. 2 The Magic Art, 297. The second is “Scientific Discoveries” (217-221) and presents more information on three points in the book, the Nature of Light, Positive and negative electricity, and the Mental Ambience.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Aerodrome: A Love Story - Rex [Reginald Ernest] Warner (1905-86) (John Lane, 1941)
Dystopia in which a military leader imposes his very restrictive version of military discipline on a rapidly expanding airfield and the area around it. He plans to take over all of Britain. He argues that women should be used sexually by the airmen as long as no children are born, and no long-term attachment develops.
Rpt. Oxford, Eng.: Oxford University Press, 1982, with an “Introduction” by Anthony Burgess (9-12); London: Vintage books, 2008 with an “Introduction” by Michael [John] Moorcock ([ix-xx]). U.S. ed. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott, [1946]. Rpt. with the subtitle A Novel. London: John Lane, 1944; and as New ed. with the subtitle A Novel. London: John Lane, 1946; U.S. Ed. Philadelphia, PA: J. B. Lippincott, 1946. Rpt. with the subtitle A Novel and the “Introduction” by Burgess (9-12). London: The Bodley Head, 1982. Rpt. with the original subtitle London: The Bodley Head, 1966, with an “Introduction” by Angus Wilson (9-11); U.S. ed. Boston, MA: Atlantic Monthly Press Book/Little, Brown and Co., 1966, with the “Introduction” by Angus Wilson (9-11); rpt. New York: Ballantine Books, 1969, with the “Introduction” by Angus Wilson (xi-xiii). Most of the many have the original subtitle.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Atlantis" - W[ystan] H[ugh] Auden (1907-73) (Christianity and Society, 1941)
The struggle to reach utopia, particularly the diversions on the way.
Rpt. in The Collected Poetry of W.H. Auden (New York: Random House, 1945), 20-22; in Collected Shorter Poems, 1927-1957 (New York: Random House, 1967), 202-204; Selected Poems. Ed. Edward Mendelson (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 116-118; and in The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Poems. Volume II 1940-1973. Ed. Edward Mendelson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022), 232-234, with a Textual Note on 873.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The British Countryside in 1951" - H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells (1866-1946) (Guide to the New World: A Handbook of Constructive World Revolution, 1941)
A very brief eutopia based on Germany being defeated in the war, the air coming under the control of a world authority, the establishment of world law based on a Declaration of Rights (included in the book 49-54), and the adoption of socialism. Some of the countryside has been allowed to return to its natural state and areas have been reforested. Villages have more amenities. Children from the cities will spend much time in the country. The old stately homes have been turned into country clubs and hotels. In “Future Cities” (96-97), he says that in this essay and “Uprooted People” (94-95), he was “trying to Imagine the face of the world in 1951, if civilisation wins the war” (92).
Keywords: English author; Male author

A Common Enemy - J[ohn] D[avys] Beresford (1873-1947) (Hutchinson, 1941)
The novel begins with a world-wide disaster brought about by an object passing through the solar system that throws the Earth's orbit off, causing massive storms and world-wide shifts in land, and moving Earth closer to the sun. This ends World War II because most of Germany is flooded. In Britain, led by a man who recognizes that the disaster provides a common enemy that pulls people together, the rebuilding process slowly produces a socialist eutopia. Democracy rejected at the national level, but local democracy is being created. At the end of the novel, although the U.S. is recreating competitive capitalism, Europeans are in the process of creating similar cooperative systems.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Eden Island. A Novel - [Alethea Catherine] [Hayter] (1911-2006) (Hodder & Stoughton, 1941)
While most of the novel is the story of the life of an heiress, there are utopian elements both in the good works she undertakes and in her creation of Eden Island, which she establishes to provide a home for a refugee orchestra and others.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Newtopia; The World We Want - Philip Whitewell Wilson (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1941)
Eutopia. Newtopians are average people who are mostly focused on their homes. Most of the book is on current conditions and the war in particular. The eutopian aspects of the book focus on the conditions that will allow people to lead a decent life. International unity is one such condition, and the author refers to 1939 Streit. Reformed capitalism. Christian but more generally religious.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Sanity Island. A Novel - Adrian [Richard] Alington (1895-1958) (Chatto and Windus, 1941)
Satire. Humorous rearmament. People must laugh at themselves more and, in particular, laugh at the ridiculousness of their political leaders.
Keywords: English author; Male author

“Uprooted Peoples” - H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells (1866-1946) (Guide to the New World: A Handbook of Constructive World Revolution, 1941)
Very brief eutopia of a post-war “Britain in a federal world, completely socialist and sharing a common freedom of all mankind. . .” while there remains a clear continuity with the past, but with what he calls “nomadism” (94). “In a federated world, political forms will cease to be territorial, will be subordinated [95] to world unionism and professionalism” (94-95). In the next essay, “Future Cities” (96-97), he says that in “The British Countryside in 1951” (92-93) and this essay, he was “trying to Imagine the face of the world in 1951, if civilisation wins the war” (92).
Keywords: English author; Male author

"What Dreams May Come..." - J[ohn] D[avys] Beresford (1873-1947) (Hutchinson, 1941)
A man in contemporary, wartime Britain dreams of the future of another world that had had a past like Earth's but is now a communal eutopia. The dreams are presented initially through the dreams of the man as a young boy. The dreams, which he could sometimes access at will even while awake, provided an escape from an unhappy home life, and much of the novel concerns the boy’s life as he matures. He is able to live there for a longer period after being injured in a World War 2 air raid and falling into a coma. Returning to the war, he is arrested for subversion for talking about his experience. In the future there have been significant physical changes in the human race. Telepathy is normal. Sexual differences are less obvious. Only thirty books are considered worth reading. Vegetarian with no cooking.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Darkness at Noon - Arthur Koestler (1905-83) (Jonathan Cape, 1940)
A famous work describing the Show Trials in the U.S.S.R. under Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) that has been called a dystopia and has been very influential on dystopian literature.
Rpt. London: The Folio Society, 1980 with an “Introduction” (7-15) by Vladimir Bukovsky. U.S. ed. New York: Macmillan, 1941. Because the original manuscript was assumed to have been lost, all publications of the novel, including German ones, were based on this translation, but it was discovered in 2015, and a new translation by Philip Boehm based on that manuscript has been published. London: Vintage Classics, 2019. U.S. ed. New York: Scribner, 2019.
Keywords: Austrian author; English author; Hungarian author; Male author

Elizabeth in Africa - Florence A[ntoinette] Kilpatrick (1888-1968) (Herbert Jenkins, 1940)
Humorous lost race novel with all the usual plot lines.
Keywords: English author; Female author; Male author

Hopousia; or The Sexual and Economic Foundations of a New Society - J[ohn] D[aniel] Unwin (1895-1936) (George Allen and Unwin, 1940)
Detailed nonfictional eutopia with the emphasis on its sexual and economic foundations, but the whole is presented as an experiment. The author argues that a good society needs very energetic people and that will require reformed sexual and economic systems. Sexually energy comes from restraint, and he proposes two types of marriage, one that is strictly monogamous and one that is not, although with the possibility of moving between the two. Economically, capitalism must be eliminated together with private ownership of land and replaced with a form of guild socialism. The word "Hopousia" is derived from the Greek for where. There is an "Introduction" (13-29) by Aldous Huxley, who argues that while the basic institutions are sound, the approach is overly simple.
U.S. ed. New York: O. Piest, 1940. An extract was published as Our Economic Problems and Their Solution. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1944. 148 pp.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Manna - John [Edwards] Gloag (1896-1981) (Cassell and Co, 1940)
Dystopia. Manna (a plant that provides complete nourishment) grows wild. A reformation of social and political institutions begins and is suppressed. Manna is destroyed by governments.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Arrogant History of White Ben - [Winifred] [Ashton] (1888-1965) (William Heinemann, 1939)
Allegory on the rise of National Socialism. A scarecrow comes to life dedicated to eliminating all crows and leads a campaign to exterminate them.
Rpt. Portway, Bath, Eng.: Cedric Chivers, 1971.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Death Guard - Philip George Chadwick (1893-1955) (Hutchinson, 1939)
Creation of artificial life leads to a dystopia.
Rpt. London: Roc, 1992.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Enchanted Wood - Enid [Mary] Blyton (1897-1968) (George Newes, 1939)
Children’s fantasy with three children exploring the Enchanted Wood and discovering the Faraway Tree that leads them to many unusual places where they meet a variety of characters including some from fairy tales.  Includes Cockaigne episodes together with other adventures. Continued in her The Magic Faraway Tree. Illus. Dorothy M. Wheeler. London: George Newes, 1943; The Folk of the Faraway Tree. Illus. Dorothy M. Wheeler. London: George Newes, 1946; and Up the Faraway Tree. Illus. Dorothy M. Wheeler. London: George Newes, 1951, all of which is composed of illustrations with captions and have a similar format. The first part of Up the Faraway Tree was originally published in Enid Blyton’s Sunny Stories Magazine (1948).
Rpt. London: Deanes, 2012
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Holy Terror - H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells (1866-1946) (Michael Joseph, 1939)
The novel presents the dystopia of the contemporary world and the difficult process of creating a eutopia. The eutopia is Wells's world state, which is brought into being through something very like his "open conspiracy" (see 1928 Wells). Here Wells presents an unusual, deeply flawed man leading the human race towards a good life who also develops dictatorial tendencies, has a mental breakdown, and is murdered.
U. S. ed. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Hopkins Manuscript - R[obert] C[edric] Sherriff (1896-1975) (Gollancz, 1939)
The novel concerns the run up to and results of the moon crashing into the Earth and lodging in the Atlantic Ocean with the focus on the survivors in Britain as described in a manuscript found by explorers from Abyssinia. Most of the manuscript is concerned with the disaster, but it includes the emergence of a system of mostly small towns described positively followed by the emergence of a power-hungry dictator.
Rpt. London/New York: Scribner, 2023. 387 pp. Also entitled The Cataclysm. <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city></st1:place>: Pan, 1958.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author

Impromptu in Moribundia - [Anthony Walter] Patrick Hamilton (1904-62) (Constable and Co, 1939)
Satire on the caste/class system. Moribundia is England. People always behave correctly as defined by their class, and there are physical distinctions among the classes/castes.
Rpt. Nottingham, Eng.: Trent Editions, 1999.
Keywords: English author; Male author

John Innocent at Oxford - [Christopher] Richard [Sandford] Buckle (1916-2001) (Chatto and Windus, 1939)
Adventures in a reformed Oxford (no industry, no suburbs) that has replaced London as the center of English life.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"The Unknown Citizen" - W[ystan] H[ugh] Auden (1907-73) (The Listener (London), 1939)
Poem describing a bureaucratic dystopia that honors a man who is "normal in every way."
Rpt. in The Collected Poetry of W.H. Auden (New York: Random House, 1945), 142-143; in Collected Shorter Poems, 1927-1957 (New York: Random House, 1967), 146-147; in Selected Poems. Ed. Edward Mendelson (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 85-86; in The Hedgehog Review (Charlottesville, VA) 10.3 (Fall 2008): 38-39; and in The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Poems. Volume I 1927-1939. Ed. Edward Mendelson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022), 368-369, with a Textual Note on 767-768.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Visit to Utopia - J[ohn] Howard Whitehouse (1873-1955) (Oxford University Press, 1939)
Eutopia. One emphasis is on the beauty of the place. Another is on technology; for example, mining has been so improved that work underground is no longer needed. No unemployment. No war; hence no need for arms. Equal opportunity for higher education.
Keywords: English author; Male author

We Band of Brothers - [George Cecil] [Foster] (1893-1975) (Herbert Jenkins, 1939)
The dystopia created by Germany winning World War 2.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Why Not Now? A British Islander's Dream - Arthur St. John (1862-1938) (C.W. Daniel, 1939)
Eutopia. London is transformed, and the Thames is clean and a center of activity. More simple life stressing families and neighborhoods then districts or towns, countries, continents, and the world.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Adventures of Wyndham Smith - S[ydney] Fowler Wright (1874-1965) (Herbert Jenkins, 1938)
Machine dystopia with a few rebels. “Original Sin” is set in a future eutopia where disease has been eliminated and all children are healthy. A decision is made that all children will be born within a five-year period every twenty-five years, which works very well. But a Doctrine of Futility spreads, and it is decided to eliminate the entire human race.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Efforts of Chance - M[ontefiore] Follick (1887-1958) (Serjeant's Press, 1938)
Mostly adventure but describes a model town.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Welsh author

Glorious Morning; A Play in Three Acts - Norman MacOwan (1877-1961) (Victor Gollancz, 1938)
Standard authoritarian dystopia in a fictional Eastern European country. Unsuccessful rebellion.
Rpt. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1939 with photographs from the play. The novel is based on a play with the same title first produced at the Duchess Theatre, London, May 26, 1938. The play was published as "Glorious Morning: A Play in Three Acts." In Famous Plays 1938-1939 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1939), 337-453; and as the Acting ed. London: Samuel French Ltd., 1939.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Scottish author

The Hidden Tribe - S[ydney] Fowler Wright (1874-1965) (Robert Hale, 1938)
Lost race authoritarian dystopia in the Sahara following the practice of Egyptian pharaohs of marrying their sisters. The community has successfully practiced a eugenic program to enhance both physique and intelligence.
Rpt. with the subtitle A Lost Race Fantasy. [Holicong, PA]: Borgo Press, 2009.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Out of the Silent Planet - C[live] S[taples] Lewis (1898-1963) (John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1938)
First volume of a trilogy on the struggle between good and evil. Presents a eutopia as a sub-theme in which the eutopia is given by God. The other volumes of the trilogy are 1943 and 1945 Lewis. In addition, one of the major characters of the trilogy appears in 1977 Lewis. The name of the indigenous inhabitants, the Hrossa, is also used by Judith Moffett in Pennterra (1987).
Rpt. with an “Introduction” (viii-xxvi) and “Notes” (175-94) by David Elloway. London: Longmans, 1966; and New York: Scribner Classics, 1996. Chapter 16 is rpt. in The Book of Mars: An Anthology of Fact and Fiction. Ed. Stuart Clark (London: London: Head of Zeus/Apollo/Bloomsbury, 2022), 90-94.
Keywords: English author; Male author; Northern Ireland author

The Pagan City - W[illiam] N[oel] Chaplin (1892-1981) (John Long, 1938)
Ancient Rome as a dystopia that continues to exist inside the earth. In an Epilogue the author says that he was trying to demonstrate what a benefit the introduction of Christianity had been.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Professor. A Novel - Rex [Reginald Ernest] Warner (1905-86) (Boriswood, 1938)
Authoritarian dystopia derived from National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy.
Rpt. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1944; and Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, [1944]. U.S. ed. as The Professor. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1939.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Secret Island - Enid [Mary] Blyton (1897-1968) (Basil Blackwell, 1938)
Three children who believe their parents are dead and are mistreated by the aunt and uncle and a boy who has been abandoned by his grandfather un away to an island in the middle of a large lack. Seen through their eyes, it is a utopia.
Rpt. illus. Dudley Wynne. Worksop, Eng.: Award Publications Limited, 2009. 190 pp.
Keywords: English author; Female author

When Woman Reigns - [Reginald William Malyon] [Gibbs] (1878-1942) (Pen-in-Hand Pub. Co, 1938)
Flawed utopia based on the rule of women set in the future in the Himalayas. All ferocious animals and vermin eliminated after a detailed classification and research program, called the War of Human Supremacy. No disease. Sexual men do not work but are adopted by women as consorts. Children vote. Votes for dogs being considered. Thorough censorship. Civil Service based on detailed examinations after twenty years of study.
Keywords: English author; Male author

World-Birth - Shaw Desmond (1877-1960) (Methuen, 1938)
Eutopia. Education. Cooperative system with production for use not profit.
Keywords: English author; Irish author; Male author

"Year Nine" - Cyril [Vernon] Connolly (1903-74) (The New Statesman and Nation (London), 1938)
Short authoritarian dystopia particularly concerned with censorship. Humor.
Rpt. in his The Condemned Playground. Essays: 1927-1944 (London: Routledge, 1945), 154-59. Rpt. (New York: Macmillan, 1946), 154-159; (London: Hogarth Press, 1985), 154-59; and in The Selected Works of Cyril Connolly. Volume Two: The Two Natures. Ed. Matthew Connolly (London: Picador, 2002), 322-27.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Hobbit or There and Back Again - J[ohn] R[onald] R[eul] Tolkien (1897-1973) (George Allen & Unwin, 1937)
Classic children's fantasy novel. Hobbiton-across-the-Water is an arcadia.
2nd. ed. 1951; 3rd ed. 1966; 4th ed. 1978; [50th] anniversary ed. London: Unwin Hyman, 1987 with a “Foreword” by Christopher Tolkien (i-xvi); 75th Anniversary Edition. London: Harper Collins, 2011, with a “Preface” that is excerpts from the 50th ed. “Foreword” (v-xiv). For further information see The Annotated Hobbit. Rev. and exp. ed. annotated by Douglas A. Anderson. Illus. Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin Co., 2002. It includes “The Quest of Erebor” [“Gandalf’s explanation of how arranged Bilbo’s adventure”] (367-77); “On Runes” (368-69); and a bibliography that includes, among other things, an extensive list of editions of The Hobbit.
Keywords: English author; Male author

“Last Act (A.D. 1995)” - F[rank] L[aurence] Lucas (1894-1967) (The Woman Clothed With the Sun and Other Stories, 1937)
Dystopia in which the world is divided between those nations subservient to Japan (Asia to the Urals and Australasia) and Germany (Europe, Asia Minor, and Africa), with the Pan-American Union between them. The story details the dystopia as it exists in the areas controlled by Germany and ends with the human race destroyed.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Morwyn or the Vengeance of God - John Cowper Powys (1872-1963) (Cassell, 1937)
Hell as dystopia.
Keywords: English author; Male author; US author; Welsh author

Old Goat: A fantasia on a theme of Blackmail and Sudden Death - [Theodore] Edwin Greenwood (1895-1939) (William Heinemann, 1937)
A novel that includes a description of a proto-fascist authoritarian intentional community and the plan for a future authoritarian order. Considerable humor.
U.S. ed. as Under the Fig Leaf. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1937.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Rhubarb Tree - Kenneth [Cyril Bruce] Allott (1912-73); Stephen Tait (The Cresset Press, 1937)
Satire in which one focus is a fascist dystopia.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Star Begotten: A Biological Fantasia - H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells (1866-1946) (London Mercury, 1937)
The novel focuses on the belief that cosmic rays are causing positive mutations in humans and producing more rational people who will, over time, bring about a better world. Chapter 9 includes some eutopian material including better education, world peace and world citizenship with complete freedom of movement, abundance, the world turned into a garden, and individuality. Chapter 9 is 169-85 (C&W); 186-202 (Viking); 124-33 (WUP); London Mercury 36.212 (June 1937): 166-72.
Repub. London: Chatto & Windus. U.S. ed. New York: Viking, 1937. Both U.K. and U.S. eds. published in June. Rpt. ed. John Huntington. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2006.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Star-Maker - [William] Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950) (Methuen, 1937)
One of Stapledon's visions of the far, far future where the human race has been replaced by more advanced species.
Rpt. in his To the End of Time: The Best of Olaf Stapledon. Ed. Basil Davenport (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1953), 221-412; rpt. (Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 221-412; as The Star Maker. New York: Berkley Medallion, 1961; in Last and First Men & Star Maker: Two Science-Fiction Novels (New York: Dover, 1968), 247-438; Bath, Eng.: Lythway Press, 1974; and ed. Patrick McCarthy. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2004 with a “Foreword” by Freeman Dyson (xi-xv) and an “Introduction” by the editor (xix-xxxiii). Excerpts rpt. in An Olaf Stapledon Reader. Ed. Robert Crossley (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997), 22-28. An earlier version was discovered and published as Nebula Maker. Hayes, Middlesex, Eng.: Bran's Head Books, 1976. Rpt. in Nebula Maker & Four Encounters with illustrations by Jim Starlin (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1983), 1-124 with an "Introduction" by Arthur C. Clarke (vii-x).
Keywords: English author; Male author

Sugar in the Air: A Romance - E[rnest] C[harles] Large (1902-76) (Jonathan Cape, 1937)
Satire on capitalism and big business. See his Asleep in the Afternoon. London: Jonathan Cape, 1938. Rpt. London: Hyphen Press, 2008, which is a novel about the writing of Sugar in the Air.
Rpt. London: Hyphen Press, 2008.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Swastika Night - [Katharine Penelope Cade] [Burdekin] (1896-1963) (Victor Gollancz, 1937)
Dystopia where there has been five hundred years of Nazi rule, and the Nazi creed has become transmuted into a religion which directly supports the current power structure of the future Germany. There is still a single Führer who rules with the blessing of Hitler and God the Thunderer over a clearly defined hierarchy that is nationalist, racist, sexist, with love only between men and women kept separate and only for breeding, and anti-Christian. Much of the book is about one of the German Knights who knows the truth of the past and works to preserve that knowledge the future. Female author.
Rpt. in the Left Book Club Edition. London: Victor Gollancz, 1940; and by Burdekin writing as Murray Constantine. London: Gollancz, 2016, with an “Introduction” by Michael Dirda (1-4); and under the author's real name Old Westbury, NY: The Feminist Press, 1985  with an “Introduction” iii-xv) by Daphne Patai; and London: Gollancz, 2016, with an “Introduction” by Michel Dirda (1-4).
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Wild Goose Chase - Rex [Reginald Ernest] Warner (1905-86) (Boriswood, 1937)
Three brothers separately set out on a search for the wild goose and find a town that is a dystopia with the people slaves and an extraordinarily corrupt and decadent government. The youngest of the brothers leads a successful revolution. Much on revolutionary strategy and tactics.
Rpt. in the Uniform Edition. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1944, 442 pp. and London: Merlin Press, 1990, with an “Introduction by Andrew Cramp (vii-xvii). xvii + 442 pp. U.S. ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1938. 454 pp.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The World Ends - [Margaret Storm] [Jameson] (1891-1986) (J. M. Dent and Sons, 1937)
Massive earthquakes have been occurring in Europe, and one destroys most of England. In the novel, only one simple, farming family and the sophisticated protagonist author from London are depicted as surviving. Overwhelmingly dystopian, but the protagonist ultimately finds happiness in the simple life on the farm.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Young Men Are Coming! - M[atthew] P[hipps] Shiel (1865-1947) (Vanguard Press, 1937)
Includes a fascist attempt to take over Britain.
U.S. ed. New York: Vanguard Press, 1937. 375 pp.
Keywords: Creole author; English author; Male author; Montserrat British West Indies author

After Us or The World as it might be - J[ohn] P[ercy] Lockhart-Mummery (1875-1957) (Stanley Paul, 1936)
A rational anti-socialist eutopia written as a projection for AD 2536. Advanced technology. Eugenics. Genetically engineered food. Reason.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Blackshirt the Adventurer - [Graham Montague] [Jeffries] (1900-82) (Hutchinson, 1936)
Authoritarian dystopia. Cave world (World of the Secret People) inhabited by criminals, and the criminals are slaves of the overlords.
Rpt. London: Hutchinson, 1945.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Hesperides: A Looking-Glass Fugue - John [Leslie] Palmer (1885-1944) (Martin Secker & Warburg, 1936)
Dystopia. Art and imagination discouraged. No emotions. Eating and sleeping completely private and are considered impolite.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"Home Life in A.D. 2000" - E[dmund] S[idney] P[ollock] Haynes (1877-1949) (Life, Law & Letters, 1936)
Satire on overzealous law making.
Keywords: English author; Male author

In the Second Year - [Margaret] Storm Jameson (1891-1986) (Cassell, 1936)
Authoritarian dystopia set after World War I. The inability of governments to deal with post-war economic problems combined with communist agitation leads to the rise of a strong man. Labour and Training Camps are established, the former for the unemployed, the latter to punish dissidents. The novel traces three months under the regime as seen by an outsider.
Rpt. Ed. Stan Smith. Nottingham, Eng.: Trent Editions, 2004 with "Notes on the Text" (216-26).
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Machine Stops - [Victor] [Bayley] (1880-1972) (Robert Hale, 1936)
Disaster dystopia in which all metal disintegrates.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Man Who Could Still Laugh (A Story of the Future) - [Charles Houghton] [Oldfield] (1889-1961) (Bantam Books/Todd Publishing Co., 1936)
Satire on totalitarianism that sees laughter as the best defense.
Originally published in Prague newspaper (not found) and then Candide.
Keywords: English author; Male author

"My Utopia: Address to the Cosmopolitan Club of the London School of Economics and Political Science (23rd October 1934)" - William H[enry] Beveridge, [Baron Beveridge] (1879-1963) (Planning under Socialism and Other Addresses, 1936)
A world eutopia is presented based on variety. A specific eutopia located in Scotland (now known as Econ) is based on an economic system that is fundamentally capitalist but that ensures the maintenance of all basic physical and psychological needs by providing publicly for everything related to education broadly defined plus housing, transport, and the maintenance of the countryside (134-26, 138). Stress on variety (137-38) with an educational system designed to reflect the variety of human needs and interests (138-40). Both individual and collective family systems exist in Econ. The world eutopia is based on the introduction of birth control and the resultant fall in population (133). London is thus depicted as emptier and greener. Immigration anywhere in the world is open to all, but national differences remain (134, 136).
Keywords: English author; Male author

Nobody Talks Politics; A Satire with an Appendix on Our Political Intelligentsia - Geoffrey [Edgar Solomon] Gorer (1905-85) (Michael Joseph, 1936)
Dystopia in which fascism is brought about by a lack of concern. Satire on the political awakening of the middle class.
Keywords: English author; Male author

The Owl of Athene - Eden Phillpotts (1862-1960) (Hutchinson & Co, 1936)
Story told by the owl about the gods' concern with human conflict. The gods produce conflict between humans and crabs which forces the human race to work together. A vaguely described eutopia results.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Paradise Found or Where the Sex Problem has been solved (A Story from South America) - C[harles] Wicksteed Armstrong F.R.G.S. (1871-ca 1963) (John Bale, Sons & Danielsson, 1936)
A eutopia describing a eugenic colony in Brazil called Eugenia. Relatively few laws. The natural position of women is child-rearing and domestic labor while that of men is combat and work. Sexual freedom for the unmarried but self-control is stressed. Voluntary euthanasia. Defective children killed. The author had previously made a proposal for such a colony; see his “A Eugenic Colony: A Proposal for South America.” The Eugenics Review (London) 25.2 (n.s. 6.2) (July 1933): 91-97. See also 1892 Armstrong, The Yorl of the Northmen; his The Only Way: A Suggestion as to the True Solution to the Problems of Over-population, Degeneration, Unemployment and the Menace of War. London: Edgar G. Dunstan, [1921?]; and his The Survival of the Unfittest. London: C. W. Daniel Co., 1927. Rev. and enl. London: C. W. Daniel Co., 1931.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Red Comet: A Tale of Travel in the U S S R - Geoffrey Trease (1909-98) (Co-operative publishing society of foreign workers in the U.S.S.R., 1936)
Children’s book that depicts the Soviet Union as a eutopia seen through the eyes of two children from the United States who are able to fly around the country. Particular emphasis on the Soviet children. An author’s note at the end says that it is based on his own travels around the country in 1935.
U.K. ed. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1937. U.S. ed. New York: International Publishers, 1937. Both the U.K. and U.S. eds. were printed in Moscow.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Retreat from Armageddon - Muriel Jaeger (1894-1969) (Duckworth, 1936)
Set in a house-party waiting for the coming of war. Each guest is asked to speak. One (a biologist) presents a eugenic eutopia; the next (an artist) presents a critique of the eugenic eutopia which stresses that it will become a dystopia.
Keywords: English author; Female author

Sell England? - [John Percy Vyvian] Dacre Balsdon (1901-77) (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1936)
Satire on 20th Century England set in the future when Africa is the center of civilization.
Keywords: English author; Male author

A Short History of the Future - John Langdon-Davies (1897-1971) (George Routledge & Sons, Ltd, 1936)
Twenty-four prophecies of the future, mostly fairly short term but with others extending to 4000 A.D. Both eutopian and dystopian projections.
U.S. ed. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1936.
Keywords: English author; Male author

They Found Atlantis - Dennis [Yates] Wheatley (1897-1977) (Hutchinson, 1936)
Atlantis as a eutopia. The Azores are the peaks of the mountains of the submerged Atlantis. Most of the book is concerned with its discovery.
U.S. ed. Philadelphia, PA: J.B. Lippincott, 1936. Rpt. in his Worlds Far From Here (London: Hutchinson, [1954]), 745-1120.
Keywords: English author; Male author

Fraudulent Conversion. A Romance of the Gold Standard - [Matilda Angela Antonia] [Hunter] (1877-1960) (Stanley Paul, 1935)
Eutopia. A wealthy man sets out to reform England and fights for reform against fascists. Gaining control of newspapers and the bank were essential to his success. He buys freedom for prisoners of dictators. Slum clearance and medical reform.
Keywords: English author; Female author

The Green Child: A Romance - Herbert [Edward] Read (1893-1968) (William Heinemann, 1935)
Two imaginary countries. The first is located in South America and is a benevolent dictatorship. The second is under England, and, in it, mental perfection is the goal of life.
Rpt. without the subtitle London: Grey Walls Press, 1945 with illustrations by Felix Kelley; New York: New Directions, 1935 with an introduction by Graham Green, which is rpt. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1947; and Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin, 1969.
Keywords: English author; Male author

If I Were Dictator - [Charles] Vernon [Olldfield] Bartlett (1894-1983) (Methuen, 1935)
Benevolent dictatorship and its failures. Series of reforms. Tolerance. Eliminate the arms trade and replace the military with a League of Nations militia. Eliminate single family homes and replace them with apartment houses with facilities for interaction. Open up the countryside.
Keywords: English author; Male author

If I Were Dictator - H[ugh] R[ichard] L[awrie] Sheppard (1880-1937) (Methuen, 1935)
Proposals for church reform, although most of the book is criticism of the current churches. The proposed reforms include cooperation among denominations, the recognition of others than the Church of England by the state, and the pooling of church endowments.
Keywords: English author; Male author