"Love Story" - [Kendall Foster] [Crossen] (1910-81) (Future Tense: New and Old Tales of Science Fiction, 1952)
Satire in which children in the United States discover that their parents tell them one thing and then behave differently and decide that what they are told is the truth. They then kill all the adults. The story is set many years later depicts the results.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Luckiest Man in Denv" - C[yril] M[ichael] Kornbluth (1923-58) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1952)
Authoritarian dystopia. People live in huge high-rise buildings with their status determining how high they live. Constant war. The story focuses on intrigue in trying to move up the building.
Rpt. in his The Mindworm (London: Joseph, 1955), 188-202; in Nightmare Age. Ed. Frederik [George] Pohl, [Jr.] (New York: Ballantine Books, 1970), 179-93; in Cities of Wonder. Ed. Damon [Francis] Knight (New York: Macfadden-Bartell, 1967), 151-63; in The Best of C.M. Kornbluth. Ed. Frederik [George] Pohl, [Jr.] (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, 1976), 70-82; The Best of C.M. Kornbluth. Ed. Frederik [George] Pohl, [Jr.] (New York: Ballantine Books, 1977), 70-83; and in His Share of Glory: The Complete Short Science Fiction of C.M. Kornbluth. Ed. Timothy P. Szczesuil (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 1997), 108-17. Merril, MoU-St, PSt
Keywords: Male author; US author

My Journeys With Astargo; A tale of past, present and future - Perl T[ravis] Barnhouse (1887-1964) (Bell Publications, 1952)
Includes an authoritarian dystopia where the state conditions people mentally and physically for the position they will hold in society. After leaving the dystopia travelers settle on another planet that they call Perfecto and found a city called Freeport where, over the years, they establish a decent society that is called a utopia. They visit other planets, return to earth, and then set off back to Perfecto.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"No Greater Wisdom" - [Roger Phillip] [Graham] (1909-65) (Amazing Stories, 1952)
Technological eutopia.
Rpt. In Future Science Fiction, no. 11 (September 1953): 4-9, 85-91, 93, 95-96.
Keywords: Male author; US author

October Island - [William Edward March] [Campbell] (1893-1954) (Little, Brown, 1952)
South Sea island eutopia. The novel is initially concerned with the unsuccessful attempts of a missionary couple from a very strict sect to convert the natives, who wear few clothes, have an open sexuality, and worship their own gods. It then focuses on the way the missionary woman is integrated into the natives' beliefs.
U.K. ed. London: Victor Gollancz, 1952. The initial story on which the novel is based was published in Good Housekeeping 123.4 (October 1946): 30-31, 296-312.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Player Piano - Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922-2007) (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952)
Dystopia in which automation has eliminated the jobs and purpose in life of most laborers. Engineers and managers hold power and wealth, and there is a huge unemployed population.
Rpt. New York: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, 1952; as the “Colonial Issue” London: Macmillan, 1953; New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, [1966]; New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1974. 320 pp.; in Novels & Stories 1950-1962 Player Piano The Sirens of Titan Mother Night Stories. Ed. Sidney Offit (New York: The Library of America, 2012), 1-307, with a Note on the Text (819-23) and Notes (824-28); and as Utopia 14. New York: Bantam Books, 1954. 312 pp.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Public Enemy" - Kendall Foster Crossen (1910-81) (Dynamic Science Fiction, 1952)
Eutopia. Public officials are held responsible for the effects of their actions on citizens.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Red Court: Last Seat of National Government of The United States of America - Rena M[arie] Vale (1898-1983) (Nelson Publishing Co, 1952)
Dystopia of the Soviet takeover of the U.S. designed to alert Americans to the danger.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The Shining City" - Rena [Marie] Vale (1898-1983) (Science Fiction Quarterly, 1952)
Authoritarian dystopia and generally unsuccessful revolt.
Keywords: US author

"The Smile" - Ray[mond Douglas] Bradbury (1920-2012) (Fantastic 1.1, 1952)
Post-catastrophe dystopia in which even the best of the culture of the past is rejected.
Rpt. Amazing Stories 41.5 (December 1967); 24-29; Perry Rhodan, no. 75 (July 1975): 132-; in Ackermanthology: 65 Astonishing, Rediscovered Sci-Fi Shorts. Ed. Forrest J. Ackerman (Santa Monica, CA: General Publishing, 1997), 139-43; in Match to Flame: The Fictional Paths to Fahrenheit 451. Ed. Donn Albright and Jon[athan R.] Eller, Textual Ed. (Colorado Springs, CO: Gauntlet Press, 2006), 267-72;and in Bradbury’s A Pleasure to Burn: Fahrenheit 451 Stories (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2010, 133-38.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Space Merchants - Frederik [George] Pohl [Jr.] (1919-2013); C[yril] M[ichael] Kornbluth (1923-58) (Ballantine Books, 1952)
Advertising, overpopulation and corporate dystopia. See also 1984 Pohl.
U.K. ed. London: William Heinemann, 1955. U.S. ed. rpt. in American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels 1953-1956. Ed. Gary K. Wolfe (New York: The Library of America, 2012), 1-155 with “Biographical Notes” (777-79) “Notes on the text” (783-86) and “Notes” (789-99); and in Venus, Inc. (New York: Nelson Doubleday, 1985), 1-158. [21st Century ed.]. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Griffin, 2011, with “Preface The Story of the Space Merchants” (v-xii). A different version, was published as “Gravy Planet.” Galaxy Science Fiction (New York) 4.3 - 5 (June - August 1952): 4-61, 108-59, 104-59. This version has some wording differences, mostly minor, throughout the text and three concluding chapters not found in the book. These three chapters are rpt. in the Library of American edition (791-99).
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Star, Bright" - Mark [Irvin] Clifton (1906-63) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1952)
Dystopia of a society that won't accept the highly intelligent.
Rpt. in The Science Fiction of Mark Clifton. Ed. Barry N. Malzberg and Martin H. Greenberg (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press/London and Amsterdam: Feffer & Simon, 1980), 18-38.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Things of Distinction" - Kendall Foster Crossen (1910-81) (Startling Stories, 1952)
Satire on advertising.
Rpt. in Future Tense: New and Old Tales of Science Fiction. Ed. Kendell Foster Crossen (New York: Greenberg/Toronto, ON, Canada: Ambassador Books, 1952), 94-147.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Throwback" - Miriam Allen deFord (1888-1975) (Startling Stories, 1952)
Overpopulation dystopia.
Rpt. in Future Tense: New and Old Tales of Science Fiction. Ed. Kendell Foster Crossen (New York: Greenberg/Toronto, ON, Canada: Ambassador Books, 1952), 77-93; in her Xenogenesis (New York: Ballantine Books, 1969), 105-17; and in New Eves: Science Fiction About Extraordinary Women of Today and Tomorrow. Ed. Janrae Frank, Jean Stine, and Forrest J. Ackerman (Stamford, CT: Longmeadow Press, 1994), 99-107 with an editors' note on 98.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Age of Prophecy" - Margaret [Neeley] St. Clair (1911-95) (Future Science Fiction Combined with Science Fiction Stories, 1951)
Dystopia of opposition to science and scientists.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“Appointment for Tomorrow” - Fritz [Reuter] Leiber [Jr.] (1910-92) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1951)
The story is set in a dystopian U. S. after World War III and focuses on the struggle for power between scientists and charlatans.
Rpt. as “Poor Superman.” In Tomorrow the Stars. Ed. Robert Heinlein (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1952); rpt. (New York: Berkley Medallion, 1967), 198-224; and in The Best of Fritz Leiber (New York: Ballantine Books, 1974), 124-52; and in The Best of Fritz Leiber (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, Inc., 1974), 115-41.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Beyond Bedlam" - Wyman [Woods] Guin (1915-89) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1951)
Dystopia. In the future war and conflict has been eliminated through the establishment of a schizophrenic society in which every person has two personalities controlled by drugs and shifts between them on a regular schedule. The Medicorps stringently enforces the drug regimen.
Rpt. in Spectrum II: A Second Science Fiction Anthology. Ed. Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest (London: Victor Gollancz, 1962), 17-73; in his Living Way Out (New York: Avon, 1967), 155-208; and in The Arbor House Treasury of Great Science Fiction Short Novels. Comp. Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg (New York: Arbor House, 1980), 3-54.
Keywords: Male author; US author

City in the Sea - [Arthur] Wilson Tucker (1914-2006) (Rinehart, 1951)
Dystopia. One man and women from a country of women cross a U.S that has been devastated by a nuclear war and discover the beginnings of the redevelopment of civilization.
Rpt. with the subtitle A compelling human story of one man and an army of women! New York: Galaxy Publishing Co, [1951]. Galaxy Science Fiction Novel No. 11.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Dark Interlude" - Mack [Dallas McCord] Reynolds (1917-83); Fredric [William] Brown (1906-72) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1951)
Brief description of a future eutopia where everyone is a student because all the issues of production and distribution have been solved. All races in the future have blended into one, and a man from the future who said he is one-fourth black is killed because he married a white woman.
Rpt. in From These Ashes: The Complete Short SF of Fredric Brown. Ed. Ben Yalow (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2000), 423-28.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Disappearance - Philip [Gordon] Wylie (1902-71) (Rinehart, 1951)
Satire. With no real explanation, the sexes disappear from each other producing two single sex societies. Both societies have problems, and the sexes reappear to each other at the end. Compare to James Patrick Kelly, “Men Are Trouble” (2004) and “The Last Judgment” (2012).
UK ed. London: Victor Gollancz, 1951. Rpt. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004 with an "Introduction" by Robert Silverberg (v-xi).
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Great Idea - Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993) (Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1951)
Anti-communist dystopia. Conflict between the dictatorship of Wonworld (capital Moscow; calendar A.M. = After Marx) and Freeworld. Freeworld wins the war, and democracy and free enterprise is established and begins to succeed.
U.K. ed. as Time Will Run Back. London: Ernest Benn Ltd., 1952. Rev. ed. as Time Will Run Back: A Novel About the Rediscovery of Capitalism. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1966. Rpt. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Historical Note" - [William Fitzgerald] [Jenkins] (1896-1975) (Astounding Science Fiction, 1951)
Satire on the Soviet Union. The Soviet invention of a personal flier, developed and sold in vast numbers by non-Soviet capitalists eliminates borders and undermines political control. As a result, the Soviet dystopia collapses.
Rpt. in Give Me Liberty. Ed. Martin Harry Greenberg and Mark Tier (New York: Baen, 2003), 141-57; and in Freedom! Ed. Martin Harry Greenberg and Mark Tier (New York: Baen, 2006), 115-28.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Marching Morons" - C[yril] M[ichael] Kornbluth (1923-58) (Galaxy Science Fiction, 1951)
Dystopia. High birth rate of the lower classes produces a nation of morons.
Rpt. in his The Mindworm (London: Joseph, 1955), 219-56; in Spectrum IV: A Science Fiction Anthology. Ed. Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest (London: Victor Gollancz, 1965), 23-54; in Looking Ahead: The Vision of Science Fiction. Ed. Dick Allen and Lori Allen (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), 113-38, with an editor’s note on 113 and “Questions” on 138; in The Best of C.M. Kornbluth. Ed. Frederik [George] Pohl, [Jr.] (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, 1976), 133-63; The Best of C.M. Kornbluth. Ed. Frederik [George] Pohl, [Jr.] (New York: Ballantine Books, 1977), 138-72; in The Nightmare Age. Ed. Frederik [George] Pohl, [Jr.] (New York: Ballantine Books, 1970), 47-82; in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume 2A. Ed. Ben Bova (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973), 204-32; and in His Share of Glory: The Complete Short Science Fiction of C.M. Kornbluth. Ed. Timothy P. Szczesuil (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 1997), 372-95. Merril, MoU-St, PSt
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Mars Child" - [Cyril Michael] [Kornbluth] (1923-58); [Judith (Josephine Juliet Grossman)] [Merril] (1923-97) (Galaxy Science Fiction, 1951)
Dystopia. Large mining corporation on Mars in conflict with a small community of settlers, which could be seen in a eutopian light.
Rpt. as Outpost Mars. By Cyril Judd [pseud.]. New York: Abelard Press, 1952; and in their Spaced Out: Three Novels of Tomorrow (Framingham, MA: NESFA Press, 2008), 137-296.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author; Male author; US author

Murder in Millennium VI - Curme Gray (1910-80) (Shasta Publishers, 1951)
Dystopia. A science fiction detective story set in a matriarchy 6000 years in the future.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Nice Girl With 5 Husbands” - Fritz [Reuter] Leiber [Jr.] (1910-92) (Galaxy Science Fiction, 1951)
Eutopia set in a high-tech future that includes space travel but with the emphasis on the way people live. There is what appears to be a group marriage, everyone has multiple professions and work assignments throughout the world, children raised collectively by the family, and no modesty.
Rpt. as “Nice Girl With Five Husbands.” Rpt. in his A Pail of Air (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964), 178-91; and in The Worlds of Fritz Leiber (New York: Ace Books, 1976), 95-109. Rpt. (Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1979), 95-109.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"No War Tomorrow" - Wallace [George] West (1900-80) (Science Fiction Quarterly, 1951)
Dystopia. Venus is where Earth offloads its misfits, troublemakers, and those who want to live without rules. These people have formed a community called Wildoatia, which implies that the people are there to sow their wild oats before, if they survive, settling down on Earth. The story focuses upon a conflict between the dominant people on Venus and Earth and a means of avoiding war.
Rpt. in Future Science Fiction (Sydney, NSW, Australia) 1.3 ([1954]): 35-60.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Null-P" - [Philip] [Klass] (1920-2010) (Worlds Beyond, 1951)
Dystopia. A post atomic war satire in which the absolute average becomes the goal and the person representing that becomes President of what remains of the United States. The human race degenerates and is replaced by intelligent dogs.
Rpt. in his The Wooden Star (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968), 57-71; in Spectrum: A Science Fiction Anthology. Ed. Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest (London: Victor Gollancz, 1961), 121-31; and in Immodest Proposals: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn. Volume 1 (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2001), 201-09 with an "Afterword" (210-11).
Keywords: Male author; US author

“The Other Foot” - Ray[mond Douglas] Bradbury (1920-2012) (New-Story Magazine: The Monthly Magazine for the Short Story, 1951)
The story depicts a Mars that is inhabited by all the African Americans who left the United States as a result of the violence that had been inflicted on them. A spaceship with whites on board arrives from an Earth that has been destroyed by their wars.
Rpt. in The Illustrated Man (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1951), 43-67; and (New York: Bantam Books, 1952), 27-38.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Our Coming World - A[lfred] C[harles] Michaud (1876-1975) (World Publication Inc, 1951)
Detailed eutopia located on Mars. Technologically advanced. Extreme emphasis on cleanliness. Intensive agriculture. One nation, one language, and one religion. The elderly are provided support. Chapter IV Old Age Dependents (51-63) is a critique of the current system. Eugenics 130-131.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

"The Pedestrian" - Ray[mond Douglas] Bradbury (1920-2012) (The Reporter (New York), 1951)
Dystopia. A pedestrian is arrested and committed to jail by automated police for walking at night rather than staying home watching television. Compare to 1928 Keller and 1963 Leiber.
Rpt. in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (New York) 3.1 (February 1952): 89-93; in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (British Edition) 2.4 (8) (May 1954): 125-28; in his The Golden Apples of the Sun (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1953), 25-30; in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Australian ed.), no. 1 [(1954)]: 64-68; in American Science Fiction (Sydney, NSW, Australia), no. 39 (July 1955): 32-34; in Match to Flame: The Fictional Paths to Fahrenheit 451. Ed. Donn Albright and Jon[athan R.] Eller, Textual Ed. (Colorado Springs, CO: Gauntlet Press, 2006), 253-58; in his A Pleasure to Burn: Fahrenheit 451 Stories (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2010), 121-25; in Brave New Worlds. Ed. John Joseph Adams (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2011), 191-95; 2nd ed. ed. John Joseph Adams (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2012), 191-95; in McSweeney’s, no. 45 Hitchcock and Bradbury Fistfight in Heaven (2013): 143-48; and in The Illustrated Man The October Country and Other Stories. Ed. Jonathan R. Eller (New York: Library of America, 2022), 678-682, with a Chronology (919-936), a Note on the Text (947) and Notes (971-972). Separately published Np: Ptd. by Roy A. Squires, [1951]; and in Grave Predictions: Tales of Mankind’s Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian and Disastrous Destiny. Ed. Drew Ford (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2016), 25-29. Separately published Np: Ptd. by Roy A. Squires, [1951]. A dramatized version was published as The Pedestrian: A Fantasy in One Act. London: Samuel French, Inc., 1966.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Restricted Clientele" - Kendall Foster Crossen (1910-81) (Thrilling Wonder Stories (New York), 1951)
Monopoly capitalist dystopia and nonviolent revolution led by scientists. There are three classes in the future, the Investors (50 with 75 permitted), who own the wealth of the Galaxy and are the government under a Chairman, the Intellectuals, and the Manuals, who are 97.6% of the population. Social mobility possible in both directions. There are opposition Liberals among the Intellectuals.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Rogue Queen - L[yon] Sprague De Camp (1907-2000) (Doubleday, 1951)
Society structured like a beehive or an ant colony with warriors, drones, and a queen. The novel concerns the arrival of humans who upset the system by introducing a supposedly neuter female to sex.
Rpt. New York: Dell, [1952]; New York: Ace Books, [1965]; New York: New American Library, 1972; and New York: Bluejay Books, 1985. Collector's Edition illus. Jill Bauman with an "Introduction" by James Gunn (3-8). Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1996.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"This Way to Mars" - William Campbell Gault (1910-95) (Startling Stories, 1951)
Gender-role reversal.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Tyrann" - Isaac Asimov (1920-92) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1951)
Standard authoritarian dystopia focusing on a rebellion based on a rediscovered revolutionary document, the "Constitution of the United States of America".
Rpt. as The Stars, Like Dust. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1951 and with unauthorized cuts as The Rebellious Stars. New York: Ace Books, 1954. U.K. ed. as The Stars Like Dust. London: Panther, 1958.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Venus is a Man's World" - [Philip] [Klass] (1920-2010) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1951)
Satire. Contrasts the frontier world of Venus where men rule with an Earth ruled by women and where men cannot be citizens. Both have problems but Venus is presented more positively.
Rpt. in his The Square Root of Man (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968), 145-69; and in Immodest Proposals: The Complete Science Fiction of William Tenn. Volume 1 (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2001), 551-65 with an "Afterword" (565).
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Wrong Side of Paradise" - Raymond F[isher] Jones (1915-94) (Amazing Stories, 1951)
A false paradise which appears to fill the wishes of every person.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Coming Attraction" - Fritz [Reuter] Leiber [Jr.] (1910-92) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1950)
Dystopia set in a post-atomic war U.S. Vicious, violent society. Women must wear masks because the face is considered too sexual.
Rpt. in his A Pail of Air (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964), 173-77; in Modern Masterpieces of Science Fiction. Ed. Sam Moskowitz (Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Co., 1965), 372-88; in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One. Ed. Robert Silverberg (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), 364-76; in The Best of Fritz Leiber (New York: Ballantine Books, 1974), 109-23; in The Best of Fritz Leiber (Garden City, NY: Nelson Doubleday, 1974), 101-14; in his Selected Stories. Ed. Jonathan Strahan and Charles N. Brown (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2010), 33-44; and in The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. Ed. Arthur B. Evans, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Rob Latham, and Carol McGuirk (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2010), 221-33 with an editors’ note on 221-22.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Commonweal of Sitnalta: The Adventures of Phineas Smith in Another Dimension" - Mulford Q[uickert] Sibley (1912-89) (Unpub. Ms, 1950)
Socialist eutopia.
Unpub. Ms
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Cybernetic Brains" - Raymond F[isher] Jones (1915-94) (Startling Stories (Chicago, IL), 1950)
Computer dystopia.
Repub. New York: Avalon, 1962.
Keywords: Male author; US author

". . . Divided We Fall" - Raymond F[isher] Jones (1915-94) (Amazing Stories (Chicago, IL), 1950)
Dystopia of conflict among different types of humanity.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Early Christians of the 21st Century - Chad Walsh (1914-91) (Harper & Bros., 1950)
Nonfiction eutopia. The first part of the book is a discussion of the problems of the present. The second part presents the positive effects of a rejuvenated Christianity.
Rpt. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1972.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Enemy Had It Too: A Play in Three Acts - Upton [Beall] Sinclair (1878-1968) (Viking Press, 1950)
Post-catastrophe dystopian play with elements of farce. A biological agent is loosed and devastates the world. The survivors include those who degenerate into primitive tribal warfare, a few survivors who had been protected from the pandemic/plague, and a group returning from Mars, who bring Martians with them who will rejuvenate the Earth. Mars had once had a great civilization, but Martians now live in tunnels.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"If This Be Utopia" - Kris [Ottman] Neville (1925-1980) (Amazing Stories (Chicago, IL), 1950)
Flawed utopia; perfection not possible.
Rpt. in Amazing Stories (Flushing, NY) 40.6 (June 1966): 61-71. Rpt. with the same pagination in Amazing Stories Quarterly Reissue (Chicago, IL) (Fall 1950). U.K. ed. Amazing Stories (London) (2nd series), no. 3 (nd): 60-69.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Let Freedom Ring" - Fritz [Reuter] Leiber [Jr.] (1910-92) (Amazing Stories (Chicago, IL), 1950)
Authoritarian dystopia that drafts men to almost certain death.
Rpt. with the same pagination in Amazing Stories Quarterly Reissue (Chicago, IL) (Fall 1950). Also rpt. in Thrilling Science Fiction (New York), no. 23 (February 1972): 4-48. U.K. ed. Amazing Stories (London) (2nd series), [no. 1] (nd): 90-134.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Little Black Bag" - C[yril] M[ichael] Kornbluth (1923-58) (Astounding Science Fiction, 1950)
A medical bag from an obviously medically eutopian future accidently appears in a contemporary slum and transforms the lives of the doctor who cared for the slum dwellers even though he had been prohibited from practicing and the people of the slum. Then the future takes the bag back.
Rpt. without the illus. in Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction. Ed. Leigh Ronald Grossman (Rockville, MD: Wildside Press, 2011), 415-21 with an editor’s note on 415.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Martian Chronicles - Ray[mond Douglas] Bradbury (1920-2012) (Doubleday & Co., 1950)
Martians have a vaguely described eutopian society before the arrival of people from earth but are killed by the chicken pox, for which they have no immunity. The various stories recount the settlement of Mars by people from Earth who bring all Earth’s problems with them. But then there is war on Earth and settlers return. See Bradbury’s article “Where Are the Golden-Eyed Martians?” West (Los Angeles Times) (March 1972): 14-15 for his comments on the exploration of Mars. A related story that was not included in the book is “The Naming of Names.” Thrilling Wonder Stories (New York) 34.3 (August 1949): 137-44; rpt. in Great Science Fiction Stories (Flushing, NY), no. 3 (1966): 31-. A later Martian story is “The Love Affair.” In his The Love Affair A Short Story and Two Poems. Illus. Joe Mugnaini (Northridge, CA: Lord John Press, 1982), 1-16; rpt. as “The Love Affair: A Martian Chronicles Story.” In The Planets. Ed. Byron Preiss (New York: Bantam Books, 1985), 104-12; rpt. without the subtitle in his The Toynbee Convector. Stories (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), 147-58; and in Mars Probe. Ed. Peter Crowther (New York: DAW Books, 2002), 13-22. A satire on The Martian Chronicles is John [Thomas] Sladek (1937-2000), “The Real Martian Chronicles.” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (New York) 118.5 & 6 (689) (May-June 2010): 86-91.
There are later editions with many variants. Among the most important are the U.K. edition, which was published as The Silver Locusts. London: Rupert Hart Davis, 1951. The Martian Chronicles. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1958 has illustrations by Karel Thole and William F. Nolan’s “Biographical Sketch and Bibliography of Ray Bradbury’s Books and Stories” with notes on where the stories were later collected. “The Martian Chronicles.” Ray Bradbury: Novels and Story Cycles. Ed. Jonathan R. Eller (New York: The Library of America, 2021), 1-230 is based on the 1973 Doubleday edition and includes a chronology of Bradbury’s life (843-861), a note on the text (863-866), textual notes (873-876), and Bradbury’s “A Few Notes on The Martian Chronicles” (809-810), rpt. from Rhodomagnetic Digest (May 1950):21. Other significant editions include the following: The Martian Chronicles. Avon, CT: Limited Editions Club, 1974, with the book designed by Ernst Reichl. an introduction by Martin Gardner, and illustrations by Joseph Mugnaini. The Collector’s ed. with an introduction by Damon Knight and an illus. by Joseph Mugnaini. Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1989. The Martian Chronicles. The Fortieth Anniversary Edition. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co. 1990. The stories that were brought together to form the first edition are: “The Million Year Picnic.” Planet Stories (New York) 3.3 (Summer 1946): 95-100; “The Off Season.” Thrilling Wonder Stories (New York) 33.2 (March 1948): 99-104; “Mars Is Heaven!” Planet Stories (New York) 3.12 (Fall 1948): 56-66; collected as “The Third Expedition” in The Martian Chronicles; rpt. as “Welcome Brothers!” Authentic Science Fiction (London), no. 29 (January 1953): 31-52; “----And the Moon Be Still as Bright.” Thrilling Wonder Stories (New York) 32.2 (June 1948): 78-91; “The Earth Men.” Thrilling Wonder Stories (New York) 32.3 (August 1948): 69-77; “The Long Years.” Maclean’s Magazine (Toronto, ON, Canada) 61.18 (September 15, 1948): 18-19, 38, 40, 42; rpt. as “Dwellers in Silence.” Planet Stories (New York) 4.2 (Spring 1949): 51-58; and in American Science Fiction (Sydney, NSW, Australia), no. 20 (December 1953): 22-29; “The Silent Towns.” Charm (New York) (March 1949): 111, 170-79; “There will come soft rains.” Colliers (New York) 125.18 (May 6, 1950): 34; rpt. in The End of the World and Other Catastrophes. Ed. Mike [Michael Raymond Donald] Ashley (London: British Library, 2019), 321-28, with an editor’s note on 319; “Impossible.” Super Science Stories (Chicago, IL) 6.1 (November 1949): 72-79, 127-29 [Listed in Table of Contents of the version to be sold in Britain and Canada but not included]; rpt. as “September 2005: The Martian” in The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection. Ed. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Vintage Books, 2016), 165-72; with an editors’ note on 164; “The Spring Night.” The Arkham Sampler (Sauk City, WI) (Winter 1949): 32-34, collected in The Martian Chronicles as “The Summer Night;” “I’ll Not Ask for Wine.” Maclean’s Magazine (Toronto, ON, Canada) 63.1 (January 1, 1950): 20-21, 30-32; rpt. as “Ylla.” Avon Fantasy Reader (New York), no. 14 (1950): 20-29 and collected in The Martian Chronicles under that title; rpt. in Lost Mars: The Golden Age of the Red Planet. Ed. Mike [Michael Raymond Donald] Ashley (London: British Library, 2018), 165-86 with an editor’s note on 163. The U. S. ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018 has the subtitle: Stories from the Golden Age of the Red Planet; “Carnival of Madness.” Thrilling Wonder Stories (New York) 36.1 (April 1950): 95-104, collected in The Martian Chronicles as “Usher II” [“Usher II was dropped from The Silver Locusts]; “Way in the Middle of the Air.” Other Worlds Science Stories (Evanston, IL) 2.1 (July 1950): 142-53 (Bradbury made a play of this story, which was performed at the Desilu Gower Studios, Hollywood in August 1962); “In This Sign.” Imagination Stories of Science Fiction and Fantasy (Evanston, IL) 2.2 (April 1951): 56-71 and collected as “The Fire Balloons” in The Silver Locusts (117-37). “The Wilderness,” which was first published in Today (April 6, 1952) and rev. in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (New York) 3.7 (November 1952): 118-26, was first collected in The Martian Chronicles (London: The Science Fiction Book Club, 1953), 130-39), which otherwise follows The Silver Locusts. The New York: Avon, 1997 ed. replaces “Way in the Middle of the Air” with “The Wilderness.” Fortieth Anniversary Edition. New York: Doubleday, 1990.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“The Morning of the Day They Did It” - E[lwyn] B[rooks] White (1899-1985) (The New Yorker, 1950)
The story is about the complete destruction of Earth, but it includes a paragraph the describes the United States government as providing all an individual’s needs, while taking all but a very small part of their pay. It also notes in passing the disappearance of all but one bird species and other problems.
Rpt. in A Treasury of Great Science Fiction. 2 vols. Ed. Anthony Boucher (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1959), 322-33.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Next 50 Years; A Forecast of the Triumphant Progress Of The Race In The Next Half-Century: 1950-1999 - Joseph McCabe (1867-1955) (Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1950)
Detailed eutopia presented as a forecast and based on the assumption of the end of war and the development of the scientific management of the economy. Religion mostly gone. Stress on education, health and recreation. Sexual freedom virtually complete. Nudity accepted. Emphasis on economic planning for the world as a whole. Frequent positive references to the experience of the Soviet Union.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Nutro 29. A Romance - Frank [Callan] Norris (1907-67) (Rinehart & Co, 1950)
Discovery of a cheap food substitute and its consequences, which include competition between countries to control it and capitalists to produce it. The central theme of the novel is that with such a food substitute available, poorly paid and otherwise exploited workers will simply quit and leave, destroying the economy. To force people back to work the food is outlawed.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Pebble in the Sky - Isaac Asimov (1920-92) (Doubleday, 1950)
Dystopia in which a radioactive Earth is shunned by the other inhabited planets. There is a galactic empire that connects this book with his Foundation series. Earth is considered to be a backward, inferior planet inhabited by primitives and many Earthlings oppose the empire. Conflict ensues with a balance ultimately achieved.
Rpt. as Galaxy Science Fiction Novel # 14. New York: Galaxy Pub. Co., 1953; and New York: Bantam Books, 1957; and in his Triangle. The Currents of Space Pebble in the Sky The Stars, Like Dust (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, [1961]), 173-346. Originally written as "Grow Old With Me" but not published as intended. That version was published in his The Alternate Asimovs (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1986). 5-133 with a "Foreword" (1-4) and an "Afterword" (134-36).
Keywords: Male author; US author

Raptured: A Novel of the Second Coming of the Lord - Ernest W. Angley (b. 1922) (Winston Press, 1950)
A novel of the Rapture (see Thessalonians 4:17) and the dystopia that follows it for those not taken.
There are several reprints by various publishers.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Spectator Sport" - John D[ann] Macdonald (1916-86) (Thrilling Wonder Stories (New York), 1950)
Dystopia. The first man to travel to the future is ignored by everyone because they have all had lobotomies (been "lobed"). Everything is run down because people have access to what Aldous Huxley called "feelies" in Brave New World (1932). These allow a person the complete, tactile experience of another existence. In this society they are available temporarily until one has earned enough to be permanently attached to the system.
Rpt. in Strange Adventures in Science Fiction. Ed. Groff Conklin (London: Grayson & Grayson, [1954]), 99-105.
Keywords: Male author; US author

On the Trail of 1960; A Utopian Novel - Ray H. Wiley (b. 1909) (Exposition Press, 1950)
Standard communal utopia following the nuclear war of 1952 and a new war initiated by those remaining from the old regimes. Change brought about by election. Money must be spent each year. Many small farms are established to end unemployment. No taxes. All those of voting age become shareholders in industry. The man who led all this is elected king.
Keywords: US author

"The Waker Dreams" - Richard [Burton] Matheson (1926-2013) (Galaxy Science Fiction (New York), 1950)
Dystopia of people in cities kept dreaming on machines.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"World Without Men" - Robert Moore Williams (1907-77) (Amazing Stories Quarterly (New York), 1950)
Dystopia of a world dominated by women.
Rpt. Amazing Stories Quarterly (Reissue) ([Winter 1950]): 60-85.
Keywords: Male author; US author

America Tomorrow - Eugene L[eslie] Howard (b. 1903) (Author, 1949)
Eutopia based on public ownership that, for the first time, guarantee real and complete equality of opportunity and eliminate racism and gender inequality. No taxes. Free medical care. Improved schools. Planned cities. See also 1934 Howard.
Booklet that he says is the first three chapters of his Must America Learn the Hard Way. Muskegon, MI: Author, 1946, which is not recorded in any library.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Earth Abides - George [Rippey] Stewart (1895-1980) (Random House, 1949)
Dystopia of catastrophe in which a pandemic kills all but a few people. The novel traces the life of one survivor who explores the U.S. and then settles in his old home near San Francisco. The novel then follows the slow growth of a small community that initially live off what was left behind but ultimately create the beginnings of a new society with the skills needed to live a simple, primitive life. The title reflects a recurring theme, that the earth will slowly adjust to the absence of human beings. Includes interracial marriage. The novel is at least in part a reworking of Jack London’s 1912 “The Scarlet Plague.”
Rpt. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1969; Los Altos, CA: Hermes Publications, 1974; and Boston, MA: Mariner Editions/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020, with “Introduction to Earth Abides” by Kim Stanley Robinson (xi-xix). Collector's Edition illus. Toni L. Taylor with an "Introduction" by Arthur O. Lewis (ix-xiv). Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1991.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Humanoids - Jack [John Stewart] Williamson (1908-2006) (Simon & Schuster, 1949)
Dystopia in which robots, which are designed to keep the peace among humans and avoid nuclear war, allow no activity that they perceive to be potentially harmful. See also 1980 Williamson, The Humanoid Touch.
Rpt. as the Collectors Edition. Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1987 illus. David. G. Klein and with an "Introduction" (v-xiv) by F.M. Busby. Exp. ed. as The Humanoids. The expanded edition with "Me and My Humanoids," "With Folded Hands," and a new introduction by the author. New York: Avon, 1980. Based in part on". . . And Searching Mind." Astounding Science Fiction 41 [50 on cover].1 - 3 (March - May 1948): 7-61, 111-62, 97-147; rpt. in The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson Volume Seven: With Folded Hands and Searching Mind (Royal Oak, MI: Haffner Press, 2010), 199-382. A related story is "With Folded Hands." Astounding Science Fiction 39.5 (July 1947): 6-45. Rpt. in Modern Masterpieces of Science Fiction. Ed. Sam Moskowitz (Cleveland, OH: World Publishing Co., 1965), 110-64; in his The Pandora Effect (New York: Ace Books, 1969), 77-125; and in The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson Volume Seven: With Folded Hands and Searching Mind (Royal Oak, MI: Haffner Press, 2010), 153-98. Williamson explains the evolution of the book in "Me and My Humanoids" in the expanded ed. (251-59).
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Last Space Ship - [William Fitzgerald] [Jenkins] (1896-1975) (Frederick Fell, 1949)
Authoritarian dystopia. Technology that allows government to punish selected individuals at a distance leads to universal tyranny. Emphasis on a successful revolt.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The NRACP" - George P[aul] Elliott (1918-80) (The Hudson Review, 1949)
Racist, authoritarian dystopia set in the U.S. in the near future with Colored Persons Reserves that are extermination camps. NRACP = National Relocation Authority: Colored Persons.
Rpt. in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 19.3 (September 1960): 81-110; and in Human and Other Beings. Ed. Allen De Graeff (New York: Collier, 1963), 141-72.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Oasis - Mary [Theresa] McCarthy (1912-89) (Random House, 1949)
Story of an intentional community named Utopia and the problems that arise from disagreements among members.
UK ed. as Source of Embarrassment. London: William Heinemann, 1950.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Pioneers of Space: A Trip to the Moon, Mars and Venus - Professor George Adamski (1891-1965) (Leonard-Freefield, 1949)
Travel through the solar system. The planets are inhabited by human beings living a better life than on the earth.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Portal in the Picture" - Henry Kuttner (1914-58); [Catherine Lucille] [Moore] (1911-87) (Startling Stories (Springfield, MA), 1949)
Technological authoritarian dystopia set on a parallel world. Mostly adventure.
Rpt. as by Lewis Padgett [pseud.] and C[atherine] L[ucille] Moore as Beyond Earth's Gates. New York: Ace, 1954. Ace Double bound with Andre Norton, Daybreak--2250 A.D., which was originally published as Star Man's Son: 2250 A.D. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1952.
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

"Prodigy" - Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1949)
Eugenic eutopia/dystopia.
Rpt. in his Caviar (New York: Ballantine Books, 1955), 84-95; and in The Perfect Host. Volume V: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon. Ed. Paul Williams (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1998), 257-62.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Root of Ampoi" - Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961) (Arkham Sampler (Sauk City, WI), 1949)
A fairly simple gender-role reversal. The women are eight feet tall, and the men are of normal stature.
Rpt. in Fantastic Stories of Imagination (Chicago, IL) 10.8 (August 1961): 31-46; and in his The End of the Story. The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith. Ed. Scott Connors and Ron Hilger (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2006), 213-24.
Keywords: Male author; US author

A Visitor from Venus - Gertrude Short (1902-68) (William-Frederick Press, 1949)
Venus presented as a eutopia in contrast with the dystopian Earth. On Venus people do the right thing simply because it is the right thing. Venus has a universal language and world government. Argues for a political and religious role for women, who, it is said, must save Earth.
Rpt. in Daring To Dream: Utopian Stories By United States Women Before 1950. Ed. Carol Farley Kessler. 2nd ed. (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995), 214-43 with an editor's note on 212-13.
Keywords: Female author; US author

The Weapon Shops of Isher - A[lfred] E[lton] van Vogt (1912-2000) (Greenberg Publisher, 1949)
Shops with advanced science and powerful weapons make relative freedom possible.
Rpt. New York: Ace Books, © 1951; Ace Double bound with Murray Leinster, Gateway to Elsewhere (1954); and in A Treasury of Great Science Fiction. 2 vols. Ed. Anthony Boucher (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1959), 1: 413-527.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US 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

Beyond This Horizon - Robert A[nson] Heinlein (1907-88) (Fantasy Press, 1948)
An essentially good society based on eugenic planning and with the idea of a future even better human race. The eutopia is generally libertarian with all men, and some women, always armed, thus ensuring peaceful relations. A group of men of lower quality try to gain control and fail.
Rpt. without the illustrations. New York: New American Library, 1960. Rpt. as vol. 7 of The Virginia Edition of his works. Houston, TX: The Virginia Edition, 2008. Part originally published as by Anson MacDonald [pseud.] as "Beyond This Horizon." Astounding Science Fiction (New York) 29.2 - 3 (April - May 1942): 9-50, 55-97.
Keywords: 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

The Carnelian Cube; A Humorous Fantasy - L[yon] Sprague De Camp (1907-2000); [Murray] Fletcher Pratt (1897-1956) (Gnome Press, 1948)
Satire in which the protagonist visits a series of worlds. The first is a purely rational world, followed by a world of individualism, and then a world of science with a medieval touch. All are unsatisfactory.
Keywords: Male author; US author

A Giant's Strength: Drama in Three Acts - Upton [Beall] Sinclair (1878-1968) (Author, 1948)
Nuclear war dystopia with a brief eutopian vignette at the end. The play follows a family through the bombing of Hiroshima, the buildup to the war, the planted bombs exploding throughout the country, and the retaliation. They escape to a cave in South Dakota where they begin to learn to live in the new circumstances, but two members leave with very different dreams of building a new life.
Rpt. as A Giant's Strength: A Three Act-Drama of the Atomic Bomb. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1948. U.K. ed. London: T.W. Laurie, [1948].
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Great Judge" - A[lfred] E[lton] van Vogt (1912-2000) (Fantasy Book, 1948)
Authoritarian dystopia as background.
Rpt. in Authentic Science Fiction, no. 71 (July 1956): 127-32; in his Away and Beyond (New York: Avon, 1952), 69-73; (New York: Berkeley, 1959), 35-39; New ed. (New York: Berkeley, 1963); 40-45; U.K. ed. (London: Panther, 1963), 41-45; in Microcosmic Tales: 100 Wondrous Science Fiction Short-Short Stories. Ed. Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Joseph D. Olander (New York: Taplinger Publishing Co., 1980); rpt. (New York: DAW Books, 1992), 104-09; and in Transfinite: The Essential A.E. van Vogt. Ed. Joe Rico and Rick Katze (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2002), 329-32.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

The Life and Times of the Shmoo - [Alfred Gerald] [Caplin] (1909-79 (Simon and Schuster, 1948)
Comic strip. The Shmoo is a creature who provides all the food anyone wants, thus producing a classic Cockaigne. The strips recount the eutopia produced, the troubles this gives rise to, and the attempts of government and business to destroy the Shmoo. Other Shmoo material includes Gerald Marks and Al Capp, Shmoo Songs. New York: Bristol Music Corp., 1949 [held by the Los Angeles Public Library]; and a series of Hanna-Barbera films in 1979 (Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo) and 1987-88 (sixteen films). See also Al Capp, The Return of the Shmoo. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959. Rpt. as “The Shmoo: 1959.” In his The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2002), 93-143; rpt. in Shmoo. The Complete Comic Books. Milwaukee, WI: Dark Horse Books, 2008.
U.K. ed. London: Convoy Publications, 1949. Rpt. as "The Shmoo: 1948." In his The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2002), 1-93. All the strips rpt. in Al Capp's Shmoo: The Complete Newspaper Strips. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Books, 2011. See also Al Capp's Shmoo Comics, no. 1 - 5 (July 1949 - April 1950). 5 vols. New York: Toby Press, 1949 - 50 [held by Michigan State University]. Some rpt. in Washable Jones and the Shmoos, no. 1 (June 1953) [all published. Held by Michigan State University]. Rpt. in Shmoo. The Complete Comic Books. Milwaukee, WI: Dark Horse Books, 2008.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Lottery" - Shirley Jackson (1916-65) (The New Yorker, 1948)
Dystopia in which each year every community chooses one person by lot to be stoned to death in the belief that this will make for a better year to come.
Rpt. in her The Lottery or The Adventures of James Harris (New York: Farrar, Straus and Co., 1949), 291-302; in ovels and Stories: The Lottery The Haunting of Hill House We Have Always Lived in the Castle Other Stories and Sketches. Ed Joyce Carol Oates (New York: The Library of America, 2010), 227-35; in Brave New Worlds. Ed. John Joseph Adams (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2011), 3-10; 2nd ed. as Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories. Ed. John Joseph Adams (San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2012), 3-10; and illus. Garrett Grove. The New Yorker 96.21 (July 27, 2020): 50-53.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"New Year's Revolution (A Satire)" - [Edythe] [Eyde] (1921-2015) (Vice Versa: America's Gayest Magazine (Los Angeles, CA), 1948)
A violent heterosexual man is transported to a future gay eutopia where the few heterosexuals are thought of the ways gays were at the time.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The Penultimate Trump" - R[obert] C[hester] W[ilson] Ettinger (1918-2011) (Startling Stories (Springfield, MA), 1948)
Eutopia that resulted from people choosing to freeze themselves for later resurrection. A key is banishment for selfishness that causes harm to others.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Pillar of Fire" - Ray[mond Douglas] Bradbury (1920-2012) (Planet Stories (New York), 1948)
Flawed utopia in which there is no crime or violence and a man from the past starts murdering people. Bradbury considers it a precursor to Fahrenheit 451 (1953).
Rpt. in A Treasury of Great Science Fiction. 2 vols. Ed. Anthony Boucher (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1959), 1: 141-69; in Match to Flame: The Fictional Paths to Fahrenheit 451. Ed. Donn Albright and Jon[athan R.] Eller, Textual Ed. (Colorado Springs, CO: Gauntlet Press, 2006), 101-38; and in The Illustrated Man The October Country and Other Stories. Ed. Jonathan R. Eller (New York: Library of America, 2022), 579-616, with a Chronology (919-936, a Note on the Text (947, with a minor correction noted on 949) and Notes (968-969).
Keywords: Male author; US author

"That Only a Mother" - Judith (Josephine Juliet Grossman) Merril (1923-1997) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1948)
Dystopian background to a story about the deformities and mutations brought about by a nuclear war.
Rpt. in Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume One. The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time Chosen by the Members of The Science Fiction Writers of America. Ed. Robert Silverberg (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974), 279-87; in Homecalling and Other Stories: The Complete Solo Short Science Fiction of Judith Merril. Ed. Elisabeth Carey (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2005), 11-19; in The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. Ed. Arthur B. Evans, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Rob Latham, and Carol McGuirk (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2010), 211-20 with an editors’ note on 211-12; in Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction. Ed. Leigh Ronald Grossman (Rockville, MD: Wildside Press, 2011), 433-34 with an editor’s note on 433; and in The Future is Female! 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women from Pulp Pioneers to Ursula K. Le Guin. Ed. Lisa Yaszek (New York: Library of America, 2018), 88-100. Additional material, including biographies, can be found at womenSF.loa.org.
Keywords: Canadian author; Female author; US author

Walden Two - B[urrhus] F[rederick] Skinner (1904-90) (Macmillan, 1948)
Eutopia brought about through behavioral engineering presented in the form of an intentional community, and a number of communities were established that intended to put Skinner's ideas into practice. While some are still in existence, all but one abandoned most of Skinner's specific ideas; see Hilke Kuhlmann, Living Walden Two: B.F. Skinner's Behaviorist Utopia and Experimental Communities. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005. See also 1985 Skinner.
Reissued with new introduction by the author, "Walden Two Revisited" (New York: Macmillan, 1976), v-xvi. Rpt. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2005. Chapter 14 is rpt. as "Instead of the Cross, the Lollipop" in The New Improved Sun: An Anthology of Utopian S-F. Ed. Thomas M[ichael] Disch (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 145-56 with an editor's note on 144-45.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Adrift in the Boneyard - Robert Lewis Taylor (1912-98) (Doubleday, 1947)
A humorous post-catastrophe story (storm) in which only a few people survive. The story follows their struggles to find a place to live, and the end up on at a tropical island paradise, where the squabble on whether to develop it for a future tourist trade.
Rpt. New York: Avon, [1963]
Keywords: Male author; US author

Bend Sinister - Vladimir [Vladimirovich] Nabokov (1899-1977) (Henry Holt, 1947)
Novel set in an authoritarian dystopia. In the "Introduction" Nabokov insists that the dystopian setting is incidental to the novel which is concerned with the relationship between a father and son.
Rpt. New York: Time, Inc. 1964 with a new Introduction" by Nabokov. Rpt. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974. U.K. ed. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1960. Rpt. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1974 with the "Introduction" (5-11); and in his Novels and Memoirs, 1941-1951 (New York: Library of America, 1996), 161-358, with the "Introduction from the 1964 ed. (163-69) and "Notes on the Text" (680-95).
Keywords: Male author; Russian author; US author

Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life - Percival Goodman (1904-89); Paul Goodman (1911-72) (University of Chicago Press, 1947)
Eutopia. Non-fiction presentation of ideal city planning with a number of specific proposals for ideal communities both in the text and in the appendices. Percival Goodman's "Afterword" also includes specific proposals for ideal communities and includes a fourth paradigm taken from his 1977 Goodman.
2nd ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1960. There appear to be two states of this paperback reprint, one of which has 2nd ed. rev. and the subtitle Ways of Livelihood and Means of Life on the cover but not the title page. Rpt. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990 with an “Afterword: Communitas Revisited” (225-55) by Percival Goodman and the subtitle Ways of Livelihood and Means of Life on the cover but not the title page.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Doppelgangers: An Episode of the Fourth, The Psychological, Revolution 1997 - H[enry] F[itzgerald] Heard (1889-1971) (Vanguard Press, 1947)
Dystopia. A eutopia supposed to be brought about by new advances in psychology turns sour and becomes an authoritarian dystopia based on the same discoveries. The novel focuses on the struggle for control between two dystopias, one on the surface of the planet that used the “bread and circuses” approach to control, and the other underground that used fear as the means of control. In the novel, the underground dystopia tries to overthrow the one on the surface, using, in what may be the first use of the phrase, psychological warfare.
Keywords: Male author; UK author; US author

"The Equalizer" - Jack [John Stewart] Williamson (1908-2006) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1947)
Agrarian, anarchist eutopia of abundant power. In a note in The Pandora Effect, the author says that this story is "a companion piece" to his "With Folded Hands" (see 1949 Williamson), which was "pessimistic about technology and science" (127).
Rpt. in his The Pandora Effect (New York: Ace Books, 1969), 127-89; and in The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson Volume Seven: With Folded Hands and Searching Mind (Royal Oak, MI: Haffner Press, 2010), 93-152.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Flight to Utopia - Carleton Matthews (b. 1906) (Mount Eyre Pub. Co, 1947)
Detailed eutopia presented as Applied Christianity. The first part includes the Incan empire as a eutopia. The second part is set in the U.S. in 1980 and describes the eutopia, “Utopia Incorporated,” that has evolved over twenty-five years, with the primary goal of reducing labor time and increasing leisure time. No money, and labor is the medium of exchange (94). Everything is done through “seven operating subsidiaries—Food Incorporated, Housing Incorporated, Clothing Incorporated, Communications Incorporated, Transportation Incorporated, Recreation Incorporated, and Culture Incorporated” (98). The only role for government is oversight.
Both  PSt copies have Newtown, Pennsylvania blacked out and Trenton, NJ added.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Fury" - [Henry] [Kuttner] (1914-58) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1947)
Venus in the future with a degenerated human race living in safety and the successful struggle to revitalize the people.  Sequel to 1943 [Kuttner and Moore], “Clash By Night”.
Rpt. as by Kuttner. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1950. UK ed. London: Dennis Dobson, 1954. Reissued as Destination Infinity. Original title: Fury. New York: Avon, 1956. Rpt. Boston, MA: Garland, 1975.
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

“I Have Been in the Caves” - Margaret Rogers (d. 1955) (Amazing Stories, 1947)
The story is a response to the theories of Richard [Sharpe] Shaver (1907-75), who argued for an underground world of evil, and is presented by the author as autobiography with supporting notes by the editor of the journal, Ray[mond Arthur] Palmer (1910-77). In the author’s version, the underground world is a eutopia of people with advanced technology and psychic abilities. Prior to the publication of the story, the author had written two letters to the editor that were published in issues 20.6 (September 1946) as by Mrs. D. C. Rogers and 20.9 (December 1946) as by Margaret Rogers. The last reference to her is often reported as her writing a review of Jim Wentworth’s The Beginning, which was about her case, in Amazing Stories 22.2 (February 1948): 105. What is actually on that page is a statement by the editor of the journal about a self-published book by Rogers entitled The Beginning that he had read. No such book by either Rogers or Wentworth appears to have survived. Female author.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Jesting Pilot" - [Henry] [Kuttner] (1914-58) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1947)
An authoritarian dystopia set in a city that has been isolated from the outside world for 600 years to protect it from the wars of the overpopulated world. The city was designed to be a eutopia precisely fitted to the needs of its citizens, who are all hypnotized. The Controllers of the city are bred and raised to run the world until the Barrier around the city is raised. The citizens know nothing of them.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“The Soma Racks” - Margaret [Neeley] St. Clair (1911-95) (Startling Stories, 1947)
The first of eight Oona and Jick stories, a couple living in a high-tech future. Humor and satire with all the stories focusing on Oona, a supposedly typical, deferential housewife. In each story, something goes wrong with an aspect of the high-tech future, and, in most cases, Oona saves the day without Jick being aware of it. The others are “Super Whost.” Illus. H. W. Kiemle. Startling Stories 15.3 (July 1947): 97-102; “Aleph Sub One.” Uncredited illus. Startling Stories 16.4 (January 1948): 62-69. Rpt. in Science Fiction Yearbook, Number 5 (New York: Popular Library, 1971); and in New Eves: Science Fiction About Extraordinary Women of Today and Tomorrow. Ed. Janrae Frank, Jean Stine, and Forrest J. Ackerman (Stamford, CT: Longmeadow Press, 1994), with an editors’ note on ; “The Dobridust.” Illus. [Vincent] Napoli. Thrilling Wonder Stories 31.3 (February 1948): 41-46; “The Metal Lark.” Illus. H. W. Kiemle. Thrilling Wonder Stories 32.2 (June 1948): 71-77; “The Rotohouse.” Illus. Virgil Finlay. Thrilling Wonder Stories 32.3 (August 1948): 119-; “The Himalaychalet.” Illus. Virgil Finlay. Thrilling Wonder Stories 33.3 (February 1949): 110-14, 155; and “The Neo-Geoduck.” Illus. Virgil Finlay. Thrilling Wonder Stories 34.3 (August 1949): 129-136. Female author.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Tomorrow and Tomorrow" - [Henry] [Kuttner] (1914-58) (Astounding Science-Fiction (New York), 1947)
After a brief, aborted World War II, the GPC or Global Peace Commission rules the world and limits research to approved topics and prohibits space exploration. An underground movement wants to overthrow it in the name of an undescribed utopia.
Rpt. in his Tomorrow and Tomorrow and The Fairy Chessman (New York: Gnome Press, 1951), 9-108. U.K. ed. London: World Distributors, 1963.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Twenty-One Balloons - William [Sherman] Pène Du Bois (1916-93) (Viking, 1947)
Children's eutopia. Krakatoa before the volcano erupted is described as having a eutopian civilization with many nonsensical inventions and a social organization based on eating tastes.
Keywords: Male author; US author

White Thunder God - Pat Reid (Author, 1947)
Odd Christian eutopia set in Mexico with a history going back to the formation of the Earth. Quetzalcoatl was John the Baptist. Vegetarian without cooking, with even panthers not eating meat. Communicate with all the animals. Nudist. In contact with Venus, which is more advanced than Earth spiritually and technically with some of those advances available to the people of the eutopia.
Keywords: US author

The 21st Century Looks Back - Emanuel R[obert] Posnack (b. 1897) (The William-Frederick Press, 1946)
Reformed capitalist eutopia. The reforms stress improved and open transportation and communications. There is a Global Statistical Service, a free flow of manpower and goods, no monopolies, and a Global Stabilization Fund. There will be some world government, universal health care, and expanded education. Taxation is based on land values, following Henry George (1839-97). For Henry George's explanation of the single tax, see his Progress and Poverty. An Inquiry Into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and Of Increase of Want With Increase of Wealth. The Remedy. San Francisco, CA: W.M. Hinton, 1879. Fiftieth Anniversary Ed. New York: The Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1929. See also 1942 Posnack and his World Without Barriers--A Perspective View of Our Present and Future in a World of Economic and Ideological Conflict. New York: William Morrow, 1956, which is mostly a critique of Communism but includes a brief summary of his alternative and its positive results.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Little Things" - Henry Kuttner (1914-58) (Thrilling Wonder Stories (New York), 1946)
Future society perceived as a dystopia by the hero. In fact, it is a society designed to avoid war, and thus is a eutopia, but secrecy and some authoritarianism are necessary to achieve this end.
Rpt. in his Bypass to Otherness (New York: Ballantine Books, 1961), 101-14.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Mr. Adam - Pat [Harry Hart] Frank (1908-64) (J.B. Lippincott, 1946)
Dystopian satire with only one fertile man left alive.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Destiny Times Three" - Fritz [Reuter] Leiber [Jr.] (1910-92) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1945)
The future earth is split into three. One is a flawed utopia, which is supposed to be peaceful and joyful, but is stagnant; one is an authoritarian dystopia; and one is a destroyed landscape ruled by intelligent cats.
Rpt. in Five Science Fiction Novels. Comp. Martin Greenberg (New York: Gnome Press, 1952), 110-203); as Galaxy Novel 28. New York: Galaxy Publishing Corp., 1952; and in Binary Star # 1 (New York: Dell, 1978), 7-150. The most recent reprint has an "Afterword" by Norman Spinrad (150-55).
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Heir Unapparent" - A[lfred] E[lton] van Vogt (1912-2000) (Astounding Science Fiction, 1945)
An authoritarian dystopia, which, under a fairly benevolent dictatorship, has generally established peace and prosperity. is facing various individuals who want to replace the dictator.
Rpt. in his Away and Beyond (New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1952), 156-86; U.K. ed. (London: Panther, 1963), 100-23.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

Into the Dawn - Gaile Churchill McElhiney (1888-1978) (DeVorss & Co, 1945)
Eutopia for the spiritually advanced on an isolated island, which can be found only by those who have reached the right stage of consciousness. Vegetarian. Radioactivity in food and drink is believed to be invigorating.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Millennium 1 - W[illiam] A[ddison] Dwiggins (1880-1956) (Alfred A. Knopf, 1945)
Dystopian play. Machines that have developed thought and reason revolt against human control. At the beginning humans live hiding in caves, but they struggle to defeat the machines and ultimately win.
Keywords: Male author; US author

New Thoughts for a New World - Bert[ram Wilson] Huffman (1870-1953) (Author, 1945)
Three poems. “The Poet’s Dream Come True” [2] sees the return of a everyday, workingman Christ and the coming of the millennium. “O, Bells of Freedom” [3] is a plea for people to respond to the “Bells of Freedom” and build a eutopia. “When the Tumult Dies” [4] questions whether at war’s end people will create a “World at Peace” or more “Hatred.” T
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Utopia 1995" - Alan Dunn (1900-74) (A Bird’s-Eye View of the Postwar World, 1945)
Humor on the problems of the technological future.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Valley of the Poor - Wertie Clarice [Blackwell] Weaver (Wetzel Pub. Co, 1945)
Science cures racial prejudice and brings eutopia.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The Waveries" - Fredric [William] Brown (1906-72) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1945)
The loss of all electrical power produces a U.S. of small town eutopias.
Rpt. in Above the Human Landscape: A Social Science Fiction Anthology. Ed. Willis E. McNelly and Leon E. Stover (Pacific Palisades, CA: Goodyear Publishing Co., 1972), 7-26; and in From These Ashes: The Complete Short SF of Fredric Brown. Ed. Ben Yalow (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2000), 212-29.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Anarch" - Malcolm Jameson (1891-1945) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1944)
An authoritarian, conformist dystopia is transformed into a democratic, individualist eutopia. Mostly on the dystopia and the transition.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Arctic Bride" - Sterner St. Paul Meek (1894-1972) (American Fiction, 1944)
The eutopia occupies 29 pages of a 36-page pamphlet and is one of peace, plenty, and immortality at the North Pole. The nude woman on the cover of the Utopian Publications ed. appears to have nothing to do with the contents.
Repub. separately London: Utopian Publications, 1944.
Keywords: Male author; US author

John Smith, Emperor - S[erapio] G[onzalez] Gallego (1883-1944) (Guild Press, 1944)
Authoritarian eutopia in which everything considered immoral is illegal. The examples given are "1. Divorce. 2. Indecent prints, books, or magazines. 3. Publications of a blasphemous nature or those that vilify the religious beliefs of others. 4. Moving pictures which violate public decency and tend to wrongly influence the people, together with immoral theatrical and indecent night club performances. 5. Books that glorify crime in any form" (39-40). According to the "Foreword", the eutopia is based on the "Peace Program of Pope Pius XII" (1876-1958. Pope 1939-58).
Keywords: Male author; Spanish author; US author

Phantom Victory; The Fourth Reich 1945-1960 - Erwin [Christian] Lessner (1898-1959) (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1944)
Dystopia. German officers form an underground after defeat and conquer the world.
Keywords: Austrian author; Male author; US author

"Renaissance" - Raymond F[isher] Jones (1915-94) (Astounding Science-Fiction (New York), 1944)
Dystopia. A device that allows people to be transferred to another planet is used by the dominant powers, called the Statists, on Earth to get rid of all the scientists and independent thinkers. But some find their way back and a struggle for control begins with the possibility of a renaissance on Earth.
Repub. as Renaissance: A Science Fiction Novel of Two Human Worlds. <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">New York</st1:place></st1:state>: Gnome, 1951. Rpt. as Man of Two Worlds: A Science Fiction Novel. New York: Pyramid Books, 1963.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Worlds Beginning - Robert Ardrey (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1944)
The successful struggle to create a eutopia based on a complex new form of industry that gives workers partial ownership of the company and, it is argued, the incentive to do their best work. Set in the U.S. twenty years after World War II, which had been followed by industrial, class, and racial conflict, leading to a year called "the terror".
U.K. ed. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1945.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Clash By Night" - [Henry] [Kuttner] (1914-58); [Catherine Lucille] [Moore] (1911-87) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1943)
Dystopia. Permanent war among mercenaries on Venus.
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

"Gather, Darkness!" - Fritz [Reuter] Leiber [Jr.] (1910-92) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1943)
Religious dystopia ruled by hereditary priests who work in twos so they can spy on each other. There is a rigid class system of religious and commoners, and the majority are controlled by keeping them ignorant. Something of a response to 1941 Heinlein.
Repub. New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1950. Rpt. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1951; New York: Berkley Medallion, [1962]; New York: Pyramid, 1969; New York: Ballantine Books, 1975; and Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1980.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Iron Standard" - [Henry] [Kuttner] (1914-58); [Catherine Lucille] [Moore] (1911-87) (Astounding Science Fiction 32.4 (December 1943), 1943)
Flawed utopia on a Venus that sees its system, thousands of years old, as perfect and allows no innovation, which benefits those in power. Men from Earth upset the system
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

"It Happened Tomorrow” - Robert [Albert] Bloch (1917-94) (Astounding Stories, 1943)
The dystopia created when machines revolt and the effect on the lives of ordinary people.
Rpt. in The Devil With You! The Lost Bloch, Volume 1. Ed. David J. Schlow (Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 1999), 161-206, with a “Foreword” by Bloch on 161-62.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Let's Triumvirate or Man, Government and Happiness. A Philosophy of Man and a World-Wide Government Founded Upon Laws of Nature - Oswald Francis Zahn (b. 1874) (Author, 1943)
Detailed eutopia based on Uupolach or the universal urge principle of love and happiness, which is ". . . a strong desire or urge for, a thrilling, joyous ecstasy or emotion of order, harmony, concord, betterment, pleasure, happiness, contentment, universal love, charity, kindness and gratitude" (18). Argues that there is evidence of a former eutopia on Earth. The first step to the new eutopia is "honest information", and he gives "A Code for Honest Information" (235-55). The new "Triumvirate System" will divide the world into equal parts (suggested maps are provided), with various subdivisions so that every voter (all adults) will know personally the person they vote for.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Weapon Makers - A[lfred] E[lton] van Vogt (1912-2000) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1943)
A very early example of libertarian science fiction in that it champions the opposition to an oppressive government through the easy distribution of weapons. See also 1949 Van Vogt.
Repub. Providence, RI: Hadley Publishing Co., 1947. U.K. ed. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1954. Also published as One against Eternity. New York: Ace Books, 1955. An Ace Double bound with Murray Leinster The Other Side of Here.
Keywords: Canadian author; Male author; US author

"World Beyond the Sky" - Robert Moore Williams (1907-77) (Startling Stories (Chicago, IL), 1943)
Dystopia. A world that had been eutopian, having conquered disease, tamed the planet, and provided a good life for all was perceived to be weak by some who created an authoritarian, violent dystopia "correcting" the faults of the eutopia. People from Earth help to defeat the dystopia and future contact is planned.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The 21st Century Sizes Us Up - E[manuel] Robert Posnack (b. 1897) (Loder Appeal Press, 1942)
Introduction to 1946 Posnack emphasizing the current situation from the perspective of the 21st century. The last few pages lay out what he is going to cover in the later book.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Barrier" - [William Anthony Parker] [White] (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1942)
The future has established barriers to time travelers, and the period presented here is an authoritarian dystopia with limits to try to keep change from happening. The ideal is "Stasis."
Rpt. in Spectrum IV: A Science Fiction Anthology. Ed. Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest (London: Victor Gollancz, 1965), 134-88; in From Mind to Mind: Tales of Communication from Analog. At head of title Analog Anthology #9. Ed. Stanley Schmidt (New York: Dial Press Davis Publications, 1984), 7-47; and in The Compleat Boucher: The Complete Short Science Fiction and Fantasy of Anthony Boucher. Ed. James A. Mann (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 1998), 165-201.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Breakdown" - Jack [John Stewart] Williamson (1908-2006) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1942)
Dystopia of union domination. The author says that it is not intended to be anti-labor but "to contrast the forces of social creation and the facts of social stagnation" (People Machines, 153).
U.K. ed. Astounding Science Fiction 28. 5 (January 1942): 2-19. Rpt. in U.K. ed. Astounding Science Fiction 8.1 (December 1951): 2-36; in Journey to Infinity. Ed. Martin Greenberg (New York: Gnome Press, 1951), 110-44; in his People Machines (New York: Ace Books, 1971), 154-87, with an author’s note on 151-53; and in The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson Volume Seven: With Folded Hands and Searching Mind (Royal Oak, MI: Haffner Press, 2010), 19-54.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"City of Glass" - Noel [Miller] Loomis (1905-69) (Startling Stories (Chicago, IL), 1942)
Far future earth with two societies at war over diminished resources. One, while authoritarian, is attempting to create a decent life; the other, in which most of the people are starving, is an authoritarian dictatorship. Free trade solves the problem. A related story is his “Iron Men.” Startling Stories (Chicago, IL) 11.3 (Winter 1945): 11-65.
Repub. as The City of Glass: A Complete Science Fiction Novel. New York: Columbia Publishers, 1955.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Drives Toward War - Edward Chace Tolman (1856-1959) (D. Appleton-Century Co, 1942)
Essay but includes a short conclusion called a utopia (100-12) describing the society necessary, from the point of view of a psychologist, for avoiding war. This society must not frustrate basic biological needs, encourage identification with "acceptable authority figures," and create a "supranational state" to which people will feel more loyalty than to their nation-state (102).
Keywords: Male author; US author

Islandia - Austin Tappan Wright (1883-1931) (Farrar & Rinehart, 1942)
One of the most comprehensive eutopias ever written. The eutopia focuses on family, home, and place. Islandians are country dwellers who live on one farm for generations and only temporarily move to cities. No rich or poor even though there are aristocrats and denerir, who work on the land but have absolute right in both law and custom, which is more important than law in Islandia, to their land and homes. Considerable detail on the different expressions of love, with sexual love the least important. See also 1969, 1979, and 1982 Saxton.
Rpt. New York: New American Library, 1970; New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, 1971; and Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press/London: Duckworth Press, 2001 with an “Introduction” by John Silbersack (v-x). A selection was rpt. as “The Story of Alwina.” Elsewhere. Ed. Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold (New York: Ace Books, 1981), 164-86. Additional material by Wright was summarized by Basil Davenport (1905-66), An Introduction to Islandia: its history, customs, laws, language, and geography as prepared by Basil Davenport from “Islandia: History and Description” by Jean Perrier, first French Consul to Islandia, and translated by John Lang, first American Consul. With Maps drawn by John Lang. Toronto, ON, Canada: Farrar and Rinehart, 1942, which includes a bibliography, population statistics, notes on the climate, and a glossary created by Wright.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Overthrow” - Cleve Cartmill (1908-64) (Astounding Science Fiction, 1942)
Authoritarian dystopia. Conflict among corporation.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Pack Rat: A Metaphoric Fantasy - Francis Clement Kelley (1870-1948) (Bruce Publishing Co, 1942)
Dystopian satire on the politics of the time.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Tarnished Utopia" - Malcolm Jameson (1891-1945) (Startling Stories (Chicago, IL), 1942)
Authoritarian dystopia with slavery and torture followed by a successful revolt.
Repub. New York: Galaxy, 1956. Galaxy Science Fiction Novel No. 27.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"This Precious Freedom" - Arch Oboler (1907-87) (This Precious Freedom; Thirteen New Radio Plays, 1942)
Dystopia in which the U.S. is invaded by a totalitarian regime.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Try Another World; A Saga coursing its way through the six adventures of Joe Shaun which thrilled the village of Caryldale - John J[oseph] Meyer (1873-1948) (The Business Bourse, 1942)
Cerebroland is a planet in contact with the Godhead. As a result, the people become good. Atro is a planet where everyone is absolutely frank, which is supposed to produce eutopia but creates a dystopia instead. The protagonist also visits the Tarcorned World, where all the nations are at war, Redonia, a world to which an entire nation immigrates to avoid the war, and Nosaer--the Mentator World, which is a eutopia. The Mentator is a "mind-machine" which imbues people with telepathy. 1935 Meyer includes the Mentator. See also 1917 Meyer.
2nd rev. ed as. The Immortal Tales of Joe Shaun: An enchanting artist makes the five immortal hopes and dreams of mankind come true. DELIGHTFUL CATNIP FOR THE MIND. A satire on the stark realities; spiced with the greatest love story ever told; and blended with bewitching fantasy on the five freedoms of the cosmos. Yonkers, NY: The Carydale Library, [1944]. Other than the title, the only differences are that in the later edition no author is given for the “Introduction” and a “Prevue” summarizing the text. A note in the 1944 edition says that some of the material had been published previously.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The White Race is Supreme. Racial Education Based upon Spiritual, Scientific fact and General Observation. A White Woman’s Soul Turns Black. The White Man’s Toleration Is All to Blame - Father W[illiam] E. Riker (1873-1969) (Holy City Press, 1942)
Racist eutopia as reflected in the title. See also [194-] Riker, The Perfect Government.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Adam Link Faces a Revolt" - [Earl Andrew] [Binder] (1904-65); [Otto Oscar] [Binder] (1911-75) (Amazing Stories (Chicago, IL), 1941)
Flawed utopia in which robots prove as intractable as humans.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Island in the Sky" - Manly Wade Wellman (1903-86) (Thrilling Wonder Stories (New York), 1941)
Authoritarian dystopia including gladiators required to fight.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Read What Happened on the Island of Nogi, or Why Business is Bad - J[oseph] W[illiam] Parker (J. W. Parker Optometrist, 1941)
Anti-capitalist allegory set on the island of Nogi, which was a successful, balanced economy until a capitalist arrived and destroyed the economy. ". . . the moral of this story is that the insurance companies, the food trust and other large corporations are taking away from the public billions of dollars in excess profits which they are unable to either use or lend. The result is exactly what we should expect.” (7). See also 1935 Parker.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Samsons - Alberic A. Archambault (b. 1887) (Bruce Humphries, 1941)
Includes both eutopian and dystopian elements and both a statement of the importance of Jews to the American economy and stereotyped depictions of Jews. The Samsons, a secret society, organizes itself to eliminate persecution of Jews by removing all Jews to a compound in Mexico, thus destroying the U.S. economy.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Sixth Column" - [Robert Anson] [Heinlein] (1907-88) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1941)
Authoritarian dystopia and the revolt against it. The United States had been invaded by an Asian army and only six people were left alive in a U.S. military research establishment. They manage to defeat the invaders. 1943 Leiber is something of a response.
Rpt. as by Robert A[nson] Heinlein. Sixth Column: A Science Fiction Novel of Strange Intrigue. New York: Gnome, 1949; and as The Day After Tomorrow. New York: New American Library, 1949. Rpt. as Sixth Column as vol. 30 of The Virginia Edition of his works. Houston, TX: The Virginia Edition, 2007; and as Sixth Column. New York Baen, 2012 with an "Introduction" by William H. Patterson (v-vii) and an "Afterword" by Tom Kratman (173-83).
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Stolen Dormouse" - L[yon] Sprague De Camp (1907-2000) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1941)
Future dystopia with a new feudalism based on corporations.
U.K. ed. Astounding Science Fiction 27.2 (April 1941): 2-41. Rpt in his Divide and Rule (Reading, PA: Fantasy Press, 1948), 139-231.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“A Ceremonial” - Paul Goodman (1911-72) (New Directions in Prose and Poetry 1940, 1940)
Post-revolution eutopia which has eliminated capitalism presented through a ceremony at the destruction of some of the last billboards.
Rpt. in his The Facts of Life (New York: The Vanguard Press, 1945), 45-62; his Adam and His Works: Collected Stories (New York: Vintage Books, 1968); 32-45; and A Ceremonial. Stories 1936-1940. Volume II of the Collected Stories. Ed. Taylor Stoehr (Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1978), 107-21.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Coventry" - Robert A[nson] Heinlein (1907-88) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1940)
Dystopias and a eutopia set after the revolution against the religious dystopia of Heinlein's 1940 "If This Goes On", better known as Revolt in 2100. Four societies are depicted, three of them in the area known as Coventry and the fourth the eutopian society created after the revolution that sends people to Coventry as a punishment for harming another citizen. The three dystopias are New America, a corrupt democracy; the Free State, a dictatorship; and the Angels, the remnants of the overthrown religious dystopia.
Rpt. in his The Past Through Tomorrow: "Future History" Stories (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1967), 471-508; and in The Future History of Robert Heinlein: Volume II. Vol. 23 of the Virginia edition of his works (Houston, TX: The Virginia Edition, 2010), 181-230.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Final Blackout - L[a Fayette] Ron[ald] Hubbard (1911-86) (Astounding Science Fiction, 1940)
Primarily a novel of adventure and war set against the background of a collapsed Europe after the war. In addition to the dystopia that is the European continent, there is a dystopian socialist Britain that is overthrown by returning troops, which is then overthrown by the U.S. so that it can take over Britain.
Repub. Providence, RI: Hadley Publishing Co., 1948, with a new “Preface” by the author (ix-xi). Rpt. North Hollywood, CA: Leisure Books, 1970; New York: Garland, 1975; and Los Angeles, CA: Bridge Publications, 1992, with the “Preface” (xix-xii), an “Introduction” by Algis Budrys (vii-xv) and an anonymous “About the Author L. Ron Hubbard” (191-94).
Keywords: Male author; US author

First Port of Call - Elizabeth Garver Jordan (1867-1947) (D. Appleton-Century, 1940)
Purgatory fictionally described from a Roman Catholic viewpoint as a place where most people are preparing themselves for heaven. It is a pleasant transition period that has similarities to the many depictions of heaven as a eutopia little different from life on Earth.
U.K. ed. London: John Long, 1940.
Keywords: Female author; Male author; US author

The First to Awaken - Granville Hicks (1901-82); Richard M. Bennett (Modern Age Books, 1940)
Socialist eutopia based on cooperatives. There are few large cities and most people live in small cities, each of which is a democratically run cooperative. Decentralized production and distribution with cooperation among cooperatives and regional coordination. The system is essentially the same throughout the world.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Idealist" - [La Fayette Ronald] [Hubbard] (1911-86) (Astounding Science Fiction, 1940)
Anti-utopian story. Idealists are doomed to failure.
Keywords: Male author; US author

If This Goes On-- - Robert A[nson] Heinlein (1907-88) (Astounding Science-Fiction (New York), 1940)
An American theocracy and the revolt against it.
Rpt. in his The Past Through Tomorrow: “Future History” Stories (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1967), 361-470; and as part of Revolt in 2100: The Prophets and the Triumph of Reason Over Superstition (Chicago, IL: Shasta Publisher, 1953), 21-221, with two stories that are loosely related to “If This Goes On--”, “Coventry” (222-88), which is a utopia (see 1940 Heinlein, “Coventry”) and “Misfit” (289-317), which is non-utopian and reprinted from Astounding Science-Fiction (New York) 24.3 (November 1939): 53-67. In addition, Revolt in 2100 contains “The Innocent Eye: An Introduction” by Henry Kuttner (9-12) and “Concerning Stories Never Written” by Heinlein (13-19). Book rpt. without the subtitle New York: New American Library, 1955 with Kuttner's introduction (9-10); “‘If This Goes On--’” (11-129), “Coventry” (129-170), “Misfit” (170-88), and “Concerning Stories Never Written: Postscript” (189-92); and New York: Baen Books, 1981 with Kuttner's introduction (ix-x); “‘If This Goes On--’” (1-139), “Coventry” (141-186), “Misfit” (187-208), and “Concerning Stories Never Written: Postscript” (209-13); as Revolt in 2100 & Methuselah's Children. New York: Baen, 1999. with Kuttner’s introduction (3-5), “‘If This Goes On--’” (7-174), “Coventry” (175-233), “Misfit” (235-60), and “Concerning Stories Never Written: Postscript” (261-66). U.K. ed. of Revolt in 2100. London: Gollancz, 1964 without the subtitle, Kuttner’s introduction, or “Concerning Stories Never Written”, with “‘If This Goes On--’” (9-209), “Coventry” (210-76), and “Misfit” (277-305).
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Last Man - Alfred Noyes (1880-1958) (John Murray, 1940)
The dystopia of being the last man, but the last man finds the last woman, so they think. He battles another man, and then they discover a group beginning to rebuild what they hope will be a better world.
U.S. ed. as No Other Man. New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1940. Rpt. Philadelphia, PA: J.B. Lippincott, 1946.
Keywords: US author

Loss of Eden: A Cautionary Tale - Douglas [Frank Lambert] Brown (1921-64); Christopher Serpell (1910-91) (Faber and Faber, 1940)
Dystopia in which Germany wins World War II. New Zealand narrator.
Rpt. as If Hitler Comes: A Cautionary Tale. London: Pub. for The British Publishers Guild by Faber and Faber, 1941. There are small differences between the editions.
Keywords: US author

The Marsian - J[ohn] W[ilmer] Gilbert (b. 1865) (Fortuny's, 1940)
Detailed egalitarian, socialist eutopia that is very advanced technically. In the first part (7-83) the Marsian psychically visits a man on Earth and the focus is on Earth’s problems. The second part (85-156) shows the eutopian Mars.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Perfect Government: $25,000 Twenty-five Thousand Dollars Reward if Anyone Can Find a Flaw in it or Can Prove it Will Not Work Successfully - William E. Riker (1873-1969) (Father Riker of Holy City Inventor and Discoverer of the Perfect Government, 1940)
Eutopia. Government takes over banking, insurance, and all money lending. No hoarding of money and no moving money out of the country. The government provides full employment and cares for all disabled. Racist. Government known as “THE CHRISTIAN WHITE MAN PERFECT GOVERNMENT.” Includes The Constitution of Holy City Its Laws and Principles (15-16), although it is mostly general principles rather than a formal constitution. See also [1942?] Riker, The White Race is Supreme.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Radium Bugs" - Helen [Rose] Weinbaum (1906-82) (Super Science Stories, 1940)
While a central premise of the story is straightforward science fiction, it begins in a U. S. dictatorship, which punishes any deviance by freezing. When an earthquake awakes the protagonist 300 years later, he finds himself in a telepathic, vegetarian society that only allows the telepathic to live, which can be considered a flawed utopia.
Keywords: Female author; US author

"The Roads Must Roll" - Robert A[nson] Heinlein (1907-88) (Astounding Science-Fiction (New York), 1940)
Society organized around moving roadways.
U.K. ed. Astounding-Science Fiction 25.4 (June 1940): 9-37. Rpt in his The Past Through Tomorrow: “Future History” Stories (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1967), 30-59; and in his The Future History of Robert Heinlein: Volume 1. Vol. 22 of the Virginia edition of his works (Houston, TX: The Virginia Edition, 2010), 51-89.
Keywords: Male author; US author

When Loneliness Comes - Geo[rge] A[lan] Glenn (Author, 1940)
Lost race eutopia set in the South American jungle presented as if discovered on an actual expedition by the author. Emphasis on sexual activity as essential to health and the way it can lead to physical rejuvenation with photographs of the author before and after the expedition.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"World Without Sex" - [Edmond Moore] [Hamilton] (1904-77) (Marvel Tales (Chicago, IL), 1940)
Sex role reversal dystopia in which men, who had been enslaved, revolt and restore the "natural order" through violence with the focus on a man who beats a captured woman into "loving" him (and he her) after raping her. This is presented as the positive alternative to the woman dominated dystopia.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Brave New World" - Lawrence R. Newman (1925-2011) (The Deaf American, 1939)
Satire in which most of the population is deaf and uses signing and the hearing are a disadvantaged minority. One focus is a group of activists among the hearing who want to force the hearing to use signs.
Rpt. in his I Fill This Small Space: The Writings of a Deaf Activist, Ed. David J. Kurs (Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 2009), 224-26.
Keywords: Deaf author; Male author; US author

"City of the Corporate Mind" - Nat[haniel] Schachner (1895-1955) (Astounding Stories, 1939)
Dystopia in a series with 1937 Schachner, "Past, Present and Future" and "City of the Rocket Horde" and 1939 Schachner, "City of the Cosmic Rays". The city in this story in designed like a human body with a brain and subordinate parts functioning under the control of the brain.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"City of the Cosmic Rays" - Nat[haniel] Schachner (1895-1955) (Astounding Science Fiction, 1939)
Dystopia in a series with 1937 Schachner, “Past, Present and Future” and “City of the Rocket Horde” and 1938 Schachner, “City of the Corporate Mind”. In this story, each, entirely different individual lives in a transparent cube.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Fortress of Utopia" - Jack [John Stewart] Williamson (1908-2006) (Startling Stories (Chicago, IL), 1939)
Anti-utopian story about a failed attempt to create a utopia.
Rpt. with the subtitle an incredible Science Fiction Classic novel. Brooklyn, NY: Gryphon Books, 1998; and in The Crucible of Power: The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson Volume Five (Royal Oak, MI: Haffner Press, 2006), 209-328.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Giants of Anarchy" - [Earl Andrew] [Binder] (1904-65); [Otto Oscar] [Binder] (1911-75) (Weird Tales (New York), 1939)
Negative depiction of an anarchist society.
Keywords: Male author; US author

God’s Earth. A Novel - J[oseph] Arthur Horne (b. 1881) (Logan-Price Publishing Co, 1939)
The novel starts in the depths of the Depression and shows its effects on individuals. An instrument that makes viewing the future possible reveals that a religious eutopia will develop. The utopia is based on a policy of Production for All, which is actually a system of centralized planning in which a Board of Control will determine how much of a product is needed and factories will be assigned a quota. Civil service based rather than under political control. The book includes details of a new constitution for the United States, most of which concerns with government structure and the economy. Everyone must work but are free to choose work with wages adjusted to attract workers. The title refers to the fundamental premise that the earth belongs to God, and, as such, cannot be owned by anyone, only used.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Greater Than Gods” - C[atherine] L[ucille] Moore (1911-87) (Astounding Science Fiction, 1939)
The story projects two dystopia futures depending on which woman a scientist marries. One ends in apathy; the other ends in a dictatorship.
Keywords: Female author; US author

“The Hidden Universe” - [Roger Sherman] [Hoar] (1887-1963) (Amazing Stories, 1939)
Authoritarian dystopia presented as a utopia. The story is set during the depression when everyone is desperate for work. Some are sent to a colony in space named “Utopia.” The colonists, who did not know where they were being sent are told that each adult will be able to choose a plot of city or country land, build a house “on easy terms,” the land cannot be taken away, wages cannot be garnished, no taxes, no relief because everyone has a job, free medical care, paid fully during illness or disability, free education to limit of abilities, church in each town. There are twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of night; it rains only at night; and there are no seasons. Their contract was for five years, but they learn it is forever.
Keywords: Male author; US 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

"Lord of Tranerica" - Stanton A[rthur] Coblentz (1896-1982) (Dynamic Science Stories (Chicago, IL), 1939)
Satire. Hereditary dictatorship in a supposedly computer-perfect, business-based, and leisure-oriented society set in the 25th century. Robots do all the work, and there are mechanical judges that decide cases and sentences. Tranerica is North and South America combined.
Repub. New York: Avalon, 1966.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Man Finds the Way - Philip A[loysius] Sullivan (b. 1882) (Margent Press, 1939)
Eutopia set in 2000 that shows the development of the better world. Religion. United States of the World. National Peace Institute which educates for peace. A law establishing a United States Peace Institute was passed in 1984 and the Institute was established in 1986.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Priestess Who Rebelled" - Nelson S[lade] Bond (1908-2006) (Amazing Stories (Chicago, IL), 1939)
Blatantly sexist separation of the sexes. First story in a series set in a future after the collapse of civilization. “The Judging of the Priestess.” Fantastic Adventures (Chicago, IL) 2.4 (April 1940): 42-59 is racist, particularly anti-Japanese, as well as sexist. “Magic City.” Illus. M[anuel Rey] Isip (1904-87). Astounding Science Fiction 26.6 (February 1941): 9-36. Rpt. in A Treasury of Great Science Fiction. 2 vols. Ed. Anthony Boucher (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1959), 293-321 is set in the same future but significantly later in time when men and women are equals but there remain enclaves of the old way.
Rpt. in When Women Rule. Ed. Sam Moskowitz (Walker & Co., 1972), 198-221. Rev. as “Pilgrimage.” In his The Thirty-First of February (Gnome Press, 1949), 246-72. Rpt. (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1970), 246-72.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Sculptures of Life" - Wallace [George] West (1900-80) (Astounding Science-Fiction (New York), 1939)
The background to the story is a flawed utopia. In the future a technique for transferring the personality of a person into a newly created body allows some extremely rich people to live forever. While accumulating power and wealth for themselves, they build a high tech future that appears to be better but is entirely dependent on the whims of these few people.
Rpt. in Science-Fiction Thinking Machines: Robots, Androids, Computers. Ed. Groff Conklin (New York: The Vanguard Press, 1954), 222-41.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Telepathy Is News!” - Henry Kuttner (1914-58) (Science Fiction, 1939)
The story is set in an authoritarian dystopia when telepathy becomes possible.
Rpt. without the illus. in The Watcher at the Door: The Early Kuttner Volume Two. Ed. Stephen Haffner (Royal Oaks, MI: Haffner Press, 2016), 83-105.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Ultimate Catalyst" - Eric Temple Bell (1883-1960) (Thrilling Wonder Stories (New York), 1939)
The background to the story is a future world that has exiled the last dictator and all his followers to Amazonia, thus creating a dystopia, where a scientist develops an elaborate technique for killing him.
Rpt. in Startling Stories 20.2 (November 1949): 84-97; and in Great Science Fiction By Scientists. Ed. Groff Conklin (New York: Collier Books, 1962), 35-59 with an editor's note on 34.
Keywords: Male author; Scottish author; US author

Union Now: A Proposal for a Federal Union of the Democracies of the North Atlantic - Clarence K[irshman] Streit (1896-1986) (Harper, 1939)
Non-fiction but it includes an "Illustrative Constitution" (325-35) for the proposed union, which is seen as a first step to world government. A revised version is Union Now With Britain New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941. U.K. ed. London: Jonathan Cape, 1941. This includes an "Illustrative Declaration of Inter-Dependence and Union (207-11) as well as the constitution, slightly revised (215-23). A defense of world federalism, designed as similar to the U.S. Federalist Papers, is The New Federalist. By Publius Justice, Owen J. Roberts, John F. Schmidt, and [mostly] Clarence K[irshman] Streit. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950.
U.K. ed. London: Jonathan Cape, 1939.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Anthem - Ayn Rand [pseud.] (Cassell, 1938)
Authoritarian dystopia. Sketches of an individualist eutopia.
Rpt. London: Cassell, 1953. Rev. US ed. Los Angeles, CA: Pamphleteers, 1946; rpt. New York: New American Library, 1946; and in Famous Fantastic Mysteries 14.4 (June 1953): 12-33, 113-14. Exp. 50th Anniversary ed. New York: Dutton, 1995 with an "Introduction to the 50th Anniversary American Edition" by Leonard Peikoff (v-xiii). The 50th anniversary edition uses the 1946 edition and includes Rand's marked up 1938 edition showing the extensive revisions (109-253). Graphic novel version as Anthem. The Graphic Novel. Script Charles Santino. Art Joe Staton. New York: New American Library, 2011
Keywords: Female author; Russian author; US author

At Midnight on the 31st of March - Josephine Young Case (1907-90) (Houghton, Mifflin, 1938)
A small town is totally cut off from the outside world and creates a eutopia. The novel is in blank verse.
Rpt. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990 with a “Foreword” by Frank Bergmann (vii-x).
Keywords: Female author; US author

"Flight of the Dawn Stars" - Robert Moore Williams (1907-77) (Astounding Science-Fiction (New York), 1938)
Earth as a future Eden after the need for urban life is gone.
Rpt. in A Treasury of Science Fiction. Ed. Groff Conklin (New York: Crown, 1948), 358-69.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Island of the Individualists" - Nat[haniel] Schachner (1895-1955) (Astounding Science Fiction (New York), 1938)
Dystopia in a series with 1937 Schachner, “Past, Present and Future” and “City of the Rocket Horde” and 1939 Schachner, “City of the Corporate Mind” and “City of the Cosmic Rays”. In this story, the protagonists land on an island of isolated individuals who spend their entire lives in contemplation.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Nightmare for Future Reference” - Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943) (The New Yorker, 1938)
Dystopian poem about the next world war and its effects.
Rpt. in Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction. Ed. Leigh Ronald Grossman (Rockville, MD: Wildside Press, 2011), 250.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Revolution of 1950" - Stanley G[rauman] Weinbaum (1902-35); [Roger Sherman] [Hoar] (1887-1963) (Amazing Stories (Chicago, IL), 1938)
Mostly an adventure story set in a dictatorship in the US.
Rpt. as "The Revolution of 1960." In Weinbaum, The Red Peri (Reading, PA: Fantasy Press, 1952), 218-70; and under the latter title and with Farley [pseud.] as co-author in A Martian Odyssey and Other Science Fiction Stories. The Collected Short Stories of Stanley G. Weinbaum (Westport, CT: Hyperion Press, 1974), 500-52.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Sign of the Burning Hart - David H[enry] Keller M.D. (1880-1966) (Imprimerie de la Manche, 1938)
Set in a village called Arcadia in which people appear to lead contented lives.
Rpt. [Boston, MA]: National Fantasy Fan Federation, 1948.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Armada of the Air - Norman S. Bentley (b. 1867) (Lothrop, Lee and Shepard, 1937)
Dystopia of the dictatorship produced as a result of disarmament.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Carson of Venus - Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950) (Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Publishers, 1939, 1937)
Mostly a war story, but it includes a satire of Hitler and National Socialism.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"City of the Rocket Horde" - Nat[haniel] Schachner (1895-1955) (Astounding Stories, 1937)
Dystopia in sequel to 1937 Schachner, "Past, Present and Future" in which characters from the previous story visit another dystopian city on the same planet. This city, although highly advanced technically, is more a simple authoritarian system but with a hierarchical system similar to that in the previous story. See also 1938 and 1939 Schachner, "City of the Corporate Mind" and "City of the Cosmic Rays.
Keywords: Male author; US author

“Forgetfulness” - [John Wood] [Campbell] [Jr.] (1910-71) (Astounding Stories, 1937)
An extremely high-tech people chose to reject the technology and the violence that accompanied it and create a pastoral eutopia. Most of the story focuses on the people from another planet who plan to eliminate the eutopia to get access to the technology.
Rpt. in Adventures in Time and Space: An Anthology of Modern Science-Fiction Stories. Ed. Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas (New York: Random House, 1946), 20-45, which was rpt. as Famous Science-Fiction Stories: Adventures in Time and Space. Ed. Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas (New York: Modern Library, 1957), 20-45; and in A New Dawn: The Complete Don A. Stuart Stories. Ed. James A. Mann (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2003), 209-32.
Keywords: Male author; US 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

"Past, Present and Future" - Nat[haniel] Schachner (1895-1955) (Astounding Stories, 1937)
A dystopia on a post catastrophe Earth of a hierarchical city with people living on levels appropriate to their status. First in a series of dystopias in which people from various past times experience various other dystopias. Sequels are 1937 Schachner, "City of the Rocket Horde," and 1938 and 1939 Schachner, "City of the Corporate Mind" and "City of the Cosmic Rays".
Keywords: Male author; US author

“The Place of the Gods” - Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943) (Saturday Evening Post, 1937)
After an unexplained catastrophe called the Great Burning, a religious society has developed with strict taboos on travel to certain areas thought of as the place of the gods. Since metal is scarce and has been scavenged from most areas where travel is permitted, one man goes into the forbidden areas and discovers the ruins of the previous civilization.
Rpt. without the illus. as “By the Waters of Babylon.” In his Thirteen O’Clock: Stories of Several Worlds (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, [1937]), 3-20; in The Pocket Book of Science Fiction. Ed. Donald A. Wollheim (New York: Pocket Books, 1943), 1-16; in The Post Reader of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964), 103-17; in Fantasy Voyages: Great Science Fiction from The Saturday Evening Post. Ed. Vincent Miranda (Indianapolis, IN: Curtis, 1979), 103-17 with an editor’s note on 104; and in Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction. Ed. Leigh Ronald Grossman (Rockville, MD: Wildside Press, 2011), 247-49 with an editor’s note on 247.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Problem Island - Francis Clement Kelley (1870-1948) (St. Anthony Guild Press, 1937)
A group of children are placed on an isolated island in an experiment to see if they will invent religion. Although there are problems, they create an egalitarian, democratic eutopia, and they invent religion. At the end they become Christians.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Sterile Planet" - Nat[haniel] Schachner (1895-1955) (Astounding Stories, 1937)
The sterile planet is Earth in 4260 because humans had ignored the prophecies of the early twentieth century and had “denuded the forests, plowed up the soil, meddled recklessly with the delicate balance of nature” (52). The story is primarily concerned with a battle between the so-called civilized and those who had been left behind when the last places with water had been captured and enclosed and a conflict between the authoritarian leader of the “civilized” and a scientist with a plan to restore Earth.
Rpt. in Nature’s Warning: Classic Stories of Eco-Science Fiction. Ed. Mike Ashley (London: British Library, 2021), 113-143.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Stop! . . . Distracted People! Two Mirrors of the Future. Romantic Double Utopia - Ludovicus Textoris Serly (Bookcraft [Stamped above publisher’s name: Pub. by L.T. Serly], 1937)
Small town and rural eutopia after disastrous earthquakes.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Unholy City - Charles G[randison] Finney (1905-84) (The Vanguard Press, 1937)
Satire on the US seen as a fantastic imaginary country.
U.K. ed. London: Panther, 1965.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Chosen Race - Edgar Albion Lyons (The Cavalier Pub. Co, 1936)
Machine dystopia set in 2000 A.D. The dystopia was brought about by the inexorable process of automation that gradually threw everyone out of work. The few employed drove the unemployed out of cities and built huge walls around them. At the end the machines stop, but a small eutopia survives that had been established by a single wealthy man who made himself king, selected those who could settle, and, while providing a much better life for the people, also imposed strict rules.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Co-op. A Novel of Living: Together - Upton [Beall] Sinclair (1878-1968) (The Author, 1936)
Eutopia based on a cooperative system and consensus.
UK ed. London: T. Werner Laurie, 1936
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Emotion Solution" - Arthur K. Barnes (1909-69) (Wonder Stories (Springfield, MA), 1936)
Dystopia that eliminates emotion.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Janice in Tomorrow-Land - [Rufus] Emory Holloway (1885-1977) (American Book Co, 1936)
Young adult high tech eutopia as seen through the eyes of a twelve-year-old girl.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"Lost Paradise" - C[atherine] L[ucille] Moore (1911-87) (Weird Tales, 1936)
A story in the author’s series about the character Northwest Smith in which he visits the far past when the inhabited moon was called Seles and in a golden age.
Keywords: Female author; US author

13 Seconds that Rocked the World, or the Mentator - John J[oseph] Meyer (1873-1948) (Rae D. Henkle, 1935)
Eutopia created by scientists taking control and using their knowledge to improve the human race. Telepathy. In 1942 Meyer where the eutopia is "The Mentator World". See also 1917 Meyer.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Adam Revisits Paradise - Ralph Chaplin (1887-1961) (Pilgrimage Series No. 1, 1935)
Adam returns to Eden and finds that he could return permanently without Eve. Adam chooses Eve and expulsion from Eden.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Celestial Visitor" - [Mary Maud Dunn] [Wright] (1894-1967) (Wonder Stories (Springfield, MA), 1935)
Satire on a visitor to Earth from Eutopia who is dissatisfied with contentment, and Earth provides the alternative. Eutopia has no laws and is based equality.
Keywords: Female author; US author

Depression Island - Upton [Beall] Sinclair (1878-1968) (Author, 1935)
The first part of the book is a satire on capitalism in which three men shipwrecked on an island recreate class. The second part of the book is a satire on gender relations.
The book originated as a few pages in his The Way Out: What Lies Ahead for America (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1933), 25-31.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Doctor Crosby's Strange Experience or a New World By 1944 - Joseph W[illiam] Parker (The Peerage Press, 1935)
Detailed socialist eutopia based on the ideas of Edward Bellamy and set in Kansas City and its environs. Private property only in personal effects. All work for the government, guaranteed lifetime income. No money. Education to 25; work 26 years; retire at 50 or, by choice, continue to work. Hours of work determined by demand and difficulty. Considerable concern with farming, which is scientifically based and uses technology extensively. See also [1941?] Parker.
Some copies have Kansas City crossed out and replaced with Chicago, IL, and the press moved to Chicago at this time.
Keywords: Male author; US author

"The Escape" - [John Wood] [Campbell] [Jr.] (1910-71) (Astounding Stories (New York), 1935)
Eugenics. Initially presented as dystopian but given a positive twist at the end.
Rpt. in his Cloak of Aesir (Chicago, IL: Shasta, 1952), 47-69; rpt. (New York: Lancer Books, [1972]), 47-69; and in A New Dawn: The Complete Don A. Stuart Stories. Ed. James A. Mann (Framingham, MA: The NESFA Press, 2003), 131-47.
Keywords: Male author; US author

God's Secret - Arthur Stanwood Pier (1874-1966) (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935)
Life without death. Last chapter describes a very general eutopia of peace and plenty.
Keywords: Male author; US author

Hespamora - James Francis Dwyer (1874-1952) (Methuen & Co, 1935)
Includes a description of a dystopian community for the idle rich.
Keywords: Australian author; French author; Male author; US author

"In Caverns Below" - Stanton A[rthur] Coblentz (1896-1982) (Wonder Stories (Springfield, MA), 1935)
Satire on the modern world, particularly world politics through a world inside the earth. Mechanically advanced authoritarian system in which war is considered good. Monopoly capitalism. Beauty consists of looking old and being fat.
Rpt. in Fantastic Stories Quarterly (New York) 1.3 (Fall 1950): 11-86; as Hidden World. New York: Avalon Books, 1957; and New York: Airmont, 1964; and as In Caverns Below. New York: Garland, 1975.
Keywords: Male author; US author

The Island of Not-Me. A True Chronicle of the Life of Geoghan Willbe on The Island of Not-Me, preceded by an Account of His Person before His Arrival upon that famous Isle - Ezra Gerson Gotthelf (1907-81) (Galleon Press, 1935)
Dystopian satire mostly directed at religion and higher education. Not-me is supposed to reject vanity, but the main characters are vain.
Keywords: Male author; US author