Book description
In Utopia, More paints a vision of the customs and practices of a
distant island, but Utopia means 'no place' and his narrator's name,
Hythlodaeus, translates as 'dispenser of nonsense'. This fantastical
tale masks what is a serious and subversive analysis of the failings of
More's society. Advocating instead a world in which there is religious
tolerance, provision for the aged, and state ownership of land, Utopia
has been variously claimed as a Catholic tract or an argument for
communism andit still invites each generation to make its own
interpretation.
Thomas More was born in 1478. He succeeded Wolsey as Lord Chancellor
of England, but came into conflict with the king, Henry VIII, by
refusing to acknowledge him as sole head of the church. Charged with
high treason, More steadfastly refused to takean oath impugning the
pope's authority or upholding the king's divorce from Catherine of
Aragon. He was beheaded in 1535.
Paul Turner was educated at Winchester and King's College,
Cambridge, and became an Emeritus Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford.
