Libellus vere aureus nec minus salutaris quam festivus de optimo reip[ublicae] statu, deq[ue] noua Insula Vtopia

TitleLibellus vere aureus nec minus salutaris quam festivus de optimo reip[ublicae] statu, deq[ue] noua Insula Vtopia
Year for Search1516
AuthorsMore, Thomas(1478-1535)
Date Published[1516]
PublisherArte Theodorice Martini
Place Published[Louvain, Belgium]
KeywordsEnglish author, Male author
Annotation

The classic work presenting a better society on an isolated island and commenting on the current situation in England.

Additional Publishers

The first English translation was published as A Fruteful and Pleasaunt Worke of the Beste State of a Publyque weale, and of the newe yle called Vtopia. Trans. Ralphe Robynson. London: Ptd. by Abraham Vele, 1551. For early editions and translations, see R.W. Gibson, comp. St. Thomas More: A Preliminary Bibliography of His Works and Moreana to the Year 1750 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1961), 3-57; and Constance Smith, An Updating of R.W. Gibson’s St. Thomas More: A Preliminary Bibliography. Sixteenth Century Bibliography, No. 20 (St. Louis, MO: Center for Reformation Research, 1981), 20-29. For a consideration of some translations, see Elizabeth McCutcheon, “Ten English Translations/Editions of Thomas More’s Utopia.” Utopian Studies 3.2 (1992): 102-20. Important recent eds. are Utopia. Vol. 4 of The Complete Works of St. Thomas More. Ed. Edward Surtz, S.J. and J.H. Hexter. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965 [The trans. is based on the 1923 trans. by G.C. Richards] with an Introduction” by the editors (xv-cxciv), “Commentary” (255-70, 585), “More’s Visit to Antwerp in 1515” by Hexter (571-76), “Vocabulary and Diction in Utopia” by Surtz (577-82), and an Index (587-629; Utopia: Latin Text and English Translation. Ed. George M. Logan, Robert M. Adams, and Clarence M. Miller. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1995; Utopia. Ed. and trans. David Wootton. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1999 with an “Introduction” by Wootton (1-37); “Utopia” in Thomas More Utopia Francis Bacon New Atlantis Henry Neville The Isle of Pines [On Cover: Three Early Modern Utopias: Utopia New Atlantis The Isles of Pines]. Ed. Susan Bruce (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 1-148 with and “Introduction” to all three texts (ix-lxi) and “Explanatory Notes” to Utopia (213-31); Utopia. Trans. Paul Turner. Rev. ed. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 2003 with an “Introduction” by Turner (xi-xxviii), “Appendix: More’s Attitude to Communism” (114-17), “Glossary” (118-20), and “Notes” (121-35); Utopia A Revised Translation, Backgrounds, Criticism. 3rd ed. Ed. and with a rev. trans. by George M. Logan. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011; Utopia. Trans. Clarence H. Miller. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011, with an “Introduction” by Miller (vii-xxiiii), “A Chronology of More’s Life” (xxv-xxxviii), “Notes” (141-162), “Suggestions for Further Reading” (163-165); and an Index (167-173); 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014, with the same “Introduction” by Miller (vii-xxiii), “A Chronology of More’s Life” (xxv-xxxviii), an “Afterword” by Jerry Harp (141-60), “Notes” (161-187), “Suggestions for Further Reading” Updated by Jerry Harp (189-194), and an Index (195-201); Utopia. Trans. and ed. by Dominic Baker-Smith. London: Penguin Books, 2012 with an “Introduction” by the editor (xi-xxxix), “Appendix 1 ‘Between friends all is common’ (123-25), “Appendix 2 An Account of the Taíno People” (127-29), “Glossary of Names: (131-32), and “Notes” (132-46); as Open/Utopia. Ed. Stephen Duncome. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 2012, with an editor’s “Preface Intellectual Commons” (v-vii), “Introduction” (ix-lxv), a “Cast of Contributors” (23-34), “Sources’ (235-40), footnotes throughout the text, and the translation is “assembled from translations and editions of More’s Utopia that are in the public domain (v); Utopia. Ed. George M. Logan and trans. Robert M. Adams. 3rd ed. Cambridge Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2016, with “Ancillary materials from the first four editions: (114-35), introductory material by the editor (vii-xli), and an “index” (136-41); as Utopia The Island of Nowhere. Trans. Roger Clarke. Richmond, Eng.: Alma Classics, 2017, with “A Pen Portrait of Thomas More by His Friend Desiderius Erasmus” (vii-xvii), “Correspondence Relevant to Utopia and Other Contributions from More’s Contemporaries” (133-92), “Index of Contemporary Europeans Mentioned in Utopia and Related Documents” (193-205), “Index of Utopian and Other Exotic Names” (206-208), “Notes” (209-44), and “Extra Material on Thomas More’s Utopia (245-65); and based on the March 1518 edition with the two books using Clarence H. Miller’s New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001 translation and the all other material using the translations in the 1965 Collected Works. In The Essential Works of Thomas More. Ed. Gerard B. Wegemer and Stephen W. Smith (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020), 143-215, with an introduction on 141-42; and, also using the March 1518 edition, Utopia & Selected Epigrams. Utopia. Trans. Gerald Malsbary. Epigrams. Trans. Bradley Ritter, Carl Young, and Erik. Ellis. Ed. Gerard B. Wegemer Stephen W. Smith (Dallas, TX: CTMS Publisher at the University of Dallas, 2020, with “Notes and Commentary” on 115-62. https://thomasmorestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Utopia-Selected-Epigram-Notes-11-23-2020-compressed.pdf. An edition using a 1901 translation by Gilbert Burnet (London: Verso, 2016), includes an “Introduction” by China Miéville (1-27), part of which, “The Limits of Utopia” (11-27) was originally published in Salvage #1: Amid This Story Rubbish (2015) and essays by Ursula K. Le Guin (161-216), parts of which were originally published as “A Non-Euclidian View of California as a Cold Place To Be.” The Yale Review 72 (Winter 1983): 161-80. Rpt. with (1983) at the end of the title in her Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (New York: Grove Press, 1989), 80-100; and “The Operating Instructions.” The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination (Boston, MA: Shambhala, 2004), 206-10. [Book Two] rpt. with no indication of the translation used in Dystopia Utopia Short Stories: An Anthology of New & Classic Tales (London: Flame Tree Publishing, 2016), 231-91. For an edition in the Utopian alphabet, see Concerning the best state of a commonwealth, and the new island of Utopia: a truly golden little book: no less beneficial than entertaining. Created by Jeremy Deller and Fraser Muggeridge Studio. London: Somerset House, 2016.

Info Notes

The third ed. has the variant title--De optimo reip[ublicae] statu, deque nova Insula Utopia, libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festiuus clarissimi disertissimique. Basle, Switzerland: Io Frobenium, 1518. 

See Albert J. Geritz, comp. “Utopia.” Thomas More: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism, 1935-1997 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), 215-309; and Michael D. Wentworth, “Utopia.” The Essential Thomas More: An Annotated Bibliography of Major Modern Studies (New York: G.K. Hall, 1995, 144-251. The best overall bibliography is by Romuald I. Lakowski, The International Thomas More Bibliography, who completed it through 2017, and is now online at https://essentialmore.org/bibliographies/ where it is being annually updated by the Center for Thomas More Studies.

Title Note

The third ed. has the variant title--De optimo reip[ublicae] statu, deque nova Insula Utopia, libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festiuus clarissimi disertissimique. Basle, Switzerland: Io Frobenium, 1518.

Translation Note

The first English translation was published as A Fruteful and Pleasaunt Worke of the Beste State of a Publyque weale, and of the newe yle called Vtopia. Trans. Ralphe Robynson. London: Ptd. by Abraham Vele, 1551. Important recent eds. are Utopia. Vol. 4 of The Complete Works of St. Thomas More. Ed. Edward Surtz, S.J. and J.H. Hexter. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965 [The trans. is based on the 1923 trans. by G.C. Richards] with an Introduction” by the editors (xv-cxciv), “Commentary” (255-70, 585), “More’s Visit to Antwerp in 1515” by Hexter (571-76), “Vocabulary and Diction in Utopia” by Surtz (577-82), and an Index (587-629); Utopia: Latin Text and English Translation. Ed. George M. Logan, Robert M. Adams, and Clarence M. Miller. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1995; Utopia. Ed. and trans. David Wootton. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1999 with an “Introduction” by Wootton (1-37); “Utopia” in Thomas More Utopia Francis Bacon New Atlantis Henry Neville The Isle of Pines [On Cover: Three Early Modern Utopias: Utopia New Atlantis The Isles of Pines]. Ed. Susan Bruce (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 1-148 with and “Introduction” to all three texts (ix-lxi) and “Explanatory Notes” to Utopia (213-31); Utopia. Trans. Paul Turner. Rev. ed. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 2003 with an “Introduction” by Turner (xi-xxviii), “Appendix: More’s Attitude to Communism” (114-17), “Glossary” (118-20), and “Notes” (121-35); Utopia A Revised Translation, Backgrounds, Criticism. 3rd ed. Ed. and with a rev. trans. by George M. Logan. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011; Utopia. Trans. and ed. by Dominic Baker-Smith. London: Penguin Books, 2012 with an “Introduction” by the editor (xi-xxxix), “Appendix 1 ‘Between friends all is common’ (123-25), “Appendix 2 An Account of the Taíno People” (127-29), “Glossary of Names: (131-32), and “Notes” (132-46); Utopia. Ed. George M. Logan and trans. Robert M. Adams. 3rd ed. Cambridge Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2016, with “Ancillary materials from the first four editions: (114-35), introductory material by the editor (vii-xli), and an “index” (136-41); and as Utopia The Island of Nowhere. Trans. Roger Clarke. Richmond, Eng.: Alma Classics, 2017, with “A Pen Portrait of Thomas More by His Friend Desiderius Erasmus” (vii-xvii), “Correspondence Relevant to Utopia and Other Contributions from More’s Contemporaries” (133-92), “Index  of Contemporary Europeans Mentioned in Utopia and Related Documents” (193-205), “Index of Utopian and Other Exotic Names” (206-208), “Notes” (209-44), and “Extra Material on Thomas More’s Utopia (245-65). An edition using a 1901 translation by Gilbert Burnet (London: Verso, 2016), includes an “Introduction” by China Miéville (1-27), part of which, “The Limits of Utopia” (11-27) was originally published in Salvage #1: Amid This Story Rubbish (2015) and essays by Ursula K. Le Guin (161-216), parts of which were originally published as “A Non-Euclidian View of California as a Cold Place To Be .” The Yale Review 72 (Winter 1983): 161-80. Rpt. with (1983) at the end of the title in her Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (New York: Grove Press, 1989), 80-100; and “The Operating Instructions.” The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination (Boston, MA: Shambhala, 2004), 206-10. [Book Two] rpt. with no indication of the translation used in Dystopia Utopia Short Stories: An Anthology of New & Classic Tales (London: Flame Tree Publishing, 2016), 231-91. 

Holding Institutions

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Author Note

(1478-1535)

Full Text

[1516] More, Thomas (1478-1535). Libellus vere aureus nec minus salutaris quam festivus de optimo reip[ublicae] statu, deq[ue] noua Insula Vtopia. [Louvain, Belgium]: Arte Theodorice Martini. The third ed. has the variant title--De optimo reip[ublicae] statu, deque nova Insula Utopia, libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festiuus clarissimi disertissimique. Basle, Switzerland: Io Frobenium, 1518. The first English translation was published as A Fruteful and Pleasaunt Worke of the Beste State of a Publyque weale, and of the newe yle called Vtopia. Trans. Ralphe Robynson. London: Ptd. by Abraham Vele, 1551. For early editions and translations, see R.W. Gibson, comp. St. Thomas More: A Preliminary Bibliography of His Works and Moreana to the Year 1750 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1961), 3-57; and Constance Smith, An Updating of R.W. Gibson’s St. Thomas More: A Preliminary Bibliography. Sixteenth Century Bibliography, No. 20 (St. Louis, MO: Center for Reformation Research, 1981), 20-29. For a consideration of some translations, see Elizabeth McCutcheon, “Ten English Translations/Editions of Thomas More’s Utopia.” Utopian Studies 3.2 (1992): 102-20. Important recent eds. are Utopia. Vol. 4 of The Complete Works of St. Thomas More. Ed. Edward Surtz, S.J. and J.H. Hexter. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965 [The trans. is based on the 1923 trans. by G.C. Richards] with an Introduction” by the editors (xv-cxciv), “Commentary” (255-70, 585), “More’s Visit to Antwerp in 1515” by Hexter (571-76), “Vocabulary and Diction in Utopia” by Surtz (577-82), and an Index (587-629; Utopia: Latin Text and English Translation. Ed. George M. Logan, Robert M. Adams, and Clarence M. Miller. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1995; Utopia. Ed. and trans. David Wootton. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1999 with an “Introduction” by Wootton (1-37); “Utopia” in Thomas More Utopia Francis Bacon New Atlantis Henry Neville The Isle of Pines [On Cover: Three Early Modern Utopias: Utopia New Atlantis The Isles of Pines]. Ed. Susan Bruce (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 1-148 with and “Introduction” to all three texts (ix-lxi) and “Explanatory Notes” to Utopia (213-31); Utopia. Trans. Paul Turner. Rev. ed. Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 2003 with an “Introduction” by Turner (xi-xxviii), “Appendix: More’s Attitude to Communism” (114-17), “Glossary” (118-20), and “Notes” (121-35); Utopia A Revised Translation, Backgrounds, Criticism. 3rd ed. Ed. and with a rev. trans. by George M. Logan. New York: W.W. Norton, 2011; Utopia. Trans. Clarence H. Miller. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011, with an “Introduction” by Miller (vii-xxiiii), “A Chronology of More’s Life” (xxv-xxxviii), “Notes” (141-162), “Suggestions for Further Reading” (163-165); and an Index (167-173); 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014, with the same “Introduction” by Miller (vii-xxiii), “A Chronology of More’s Life” (xxv-xxxviii), an “Afterword” by Jerry Harp (141-60), “Notes” (161-187), “Suggestions for Further Reading” Updated by Jerry Harp (189-194), and an Index (195-201); Utopia. Trans. and ed. by Dominic Baker-Smith. London: Penguin Books, 2012 with an “Introduction” by the editor (xi-xxxix), “Appendix 1 ‘Between friends all is common’ (123-25), “Appendix 2 An Account of the Taíno People” (127-29), “Glossary of Names: (131-32), and “Notes” (132-46); as Open/Utopia. Ed. Stephen Duncome. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 2012, with an editor’s “Preface Intellectual Commons” (v-vii), “Introduction” (ix-lxv), a “Cast of Contributors” (23-34), “Sources’ (235-40), footnotes throughout the text, and the translation is “assembled from translations and editions of More’s Utopia that are in the public domain (v); Utopia. Ed. George M. Logan and trans. Robert M. Adams. 3rd ed. Cambridge Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2016, with “Ancillary materials from the first four editions: (114-35), introductory material by the editor (vii-xli), and an “index” (136-41); as Utopia The Island of Nowhere. Trans. Roger Clarke. Richmond, Eng.: Alma Classics, 2017, with “A Pen Portrait of Thomas More by His Friend Desiderius Erasmus” (vii-xvii), “Correspondence Relevant to Utopia and Other Contributions from More’s Contemporaries” (133-92), “Index of Contemporary Europeans Mentioned in Utopia and Related Documents” (193-205), “Index of Utopian and Other Exotic Names” (206-208), “Notes” (209-44), and “Extra Material on Thomas More’s Utopia (245-65); and based on the March 1518 edition with the two books using Clarence H. Miller’s New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001 translation and the all other material using the translations in the 1965 Collected Works. In The Essential Works of Thomas More. Ed. Gerard B. Wegemer and Stephen W. Smith (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020), 143-215, with an introduction on 141-42; and, also using the March 1518 edition, Utopia & Selected Epigrams. Utopia. Trans. Gerald Malsbary. Epigrams. Trans. Bradley Ritter, Carl Young, and Erik. Ellis. Ed. Gerard B. Wegemer Stephen W. Smith (Dallas, TX: CTMS Publisher at the University of Dallas, 2020, with “Notes and Commentary” on 115-62. https://thomasmorestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Utopia-Selected-Epigram-Notes-11-23-2020-compressed.pdf. An edition using a 1901 translation by Gilbert Burnet (London: Verso, 2016), includes an “Introduction” by China Miéville (1-27), part of which, “The Limits of Utopia” (11-27) was originally published in Salvage #1: Amid This Story Rubbish (2015) and essays by Ursula K. Le Guin (161-216), parts of which were originally published as “A Non-Euclidian View of California as a Cold Place To Be.” The Yale Review 72 (Winter 1983): 161-80. Rpt. with (1983) at the end of the title in her Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places (New York: Grove Press, 1989), 80-100; and “The Operating Instructions.” The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination (Boston, MA: Shambhala, 2004), 206-10. [Book Two] rpt. with no indication of the translation used in Dystopia Utopia Short Stories: An Anthology of New & Classic Tales (London: Flame Tree Publishing, 2016), 231-91. For an edition in the Utopian alphabet, see Concerning the best state of a commonwealth, and the new island of Utopia: a truly golden little book: no less beneficial than entertaining. Created by Jeremy Deller and Fraser Muggeridge Studio. London: Somerset House, 2016. 978-0-9556621. See Albert J. Geritz, comp. “Utopia.” Thomas More: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism, 1935-1997 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), 215-309; and Michael D. Wentworth, “Utopia.” The Essential Thomas More: An Annotated Bibliography of Major Modern Studies (New York: G.K. Hall, 1995, 144-251. The best overall bibliography is by Romuald I. Lakowski, The International Thomas More Bibliography, who completed it through 2017, and is now online at https://essentialmore.org/bibliographies/ where it is being annually updated by the Center for Thomas More Studies. C, PSt

The classic work presenting a better society on an isolated island and commenting on the current situation in England.