Modern British Utopias 1700-1850 (review)

578 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION 12:4 inscription dans une histoire et dans une idéologie des œuvres et des tendances analysées. Cette démarche confère à tous ces essais une dimension historique qui en rend la lecture passionnante. On aurait apprécié un index ou une liste des auteurs et des œuvres cités qui aurait facilité l'accès des lecteurs aux références dont l'abondance est fascinante. Il n'en reste pas moins que cette lectrice a rarement lu avec un tel plaisir un volume sur l'utopie et a apprécié en particulier la sensibilité de son auteur à la position à la fois privilégiée et problématique du xvme siècle dans l'histoire du genre utopique. Marie-Hélène Chabut Lehigh University Gregory Claeys, ed. Modem British Utopias 1700-1850. 8 vols. London: Pickering and Chatto, 1997. xxxix + 3,582pp. £495.00; US$850.00. ISBN 1-85196-319-7. Take this opportunity to test your UQ in total secrecy by giving yourself one point for each of the utopias in these eight volumes that you have read. Ready? The works included are: Annus Sophiae Jubilaeus (1700); The Adventures and Surprizing Deliverances of James Dubourdieu (1719); The Adventures of Alexander Vendchurch (1719); Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1720); The Memoirs ofSig. Gaudentio di Lucca (1737); A Journey to the Moon (1740); The Capacity and Extent of the Human Understanding (1745); The Life and Adventures ofPeter Wilkins (1751); A Vindication of Natural Society (1756); The Voyages, Travels & Wonderful Discoveries ofCapt. John Homesby (1757); Rasselas (1759); Millenium Hall (1762); An Account of the Giants Lately Discovered (1766); Private Letters from an American in England to His Friends in America (1769); The Travels of Hildebrand Bowman (1778); A Supplement to the History of Robinson Crusoe (1782); The Man in the Moon; or, Travels into the Lunar Regions (1783); A Journey Lately Performed Through the Air in an Aerostatic Globe (1784); The Modern Atalantis; Or, the Devil in an Air Balloon (1784); A Voyage to the Moon Strongly Recommended to All Lovers of Real Freedom (1793); Modern Gulliver's Travels (1796); Libellus: or, A Brief Sketch of the Kingdom of Gotham (1798); The Empire of the Nairs; or the Rights of Women (1811); The Last Man, or Omegarus and Syderia, A Romance in Futurity (1806); Armata (1817); New Britain (1820); The Revolt ofthe Bees (1826); The Voyage ofCaptain Popanilla (1828); The History of Bullanabee and Clinkataboo (1828); Travels in Phrenogasto (Calcutta, 1825; new edition, London, 1829); Sequel to Gulliver's Travels (1830); Great Britain in 1841 (1831); Account of an Expedition to the Interior of New Holland (1837); A Voyagefrom Utopia (MS ca. 1842; first published, 1957); The Chronicles of Clovernook (1846); The Island of Liberty; or Equality and Community REVIEWS 579 (1848); The Triumph of Woman (1848); and A Dream of Reform (1848). If you score above thirty out of a possible thirty-eight you have an outstanding Utopia Quotient (and perhaps you should have written this review). It is a good idea to make these works available together because many are very scarce and probably no one library has them all. It is also good to have them in sturdy volumes on durable acid-free paper rather than circling in cyberspace on the internet or sealed in a CD-ROM. Despite pages each crowded with fortythree lines of a rather small font, the texts are legible with less eyestrain than peering into a screen and less nuisance than printing out some or all of it on flimsy computer paper. Individual volumes are of a convenient size and weight (about four hundred pages) for reading and note-taking. Dark blue bindings with red and gold ornaments and title on the spine of each volume make the set attractive in ways that will appeal especially to collectors and librarians anxious to maintain an air of sober yet tasteful scholarship on their shelves. Thanks for this nice physical presence are due to Pickering and Chatto Publishers along with Mendip Communications Ltd for typesetting and Antony Rowe Ltd for printing and binding. By combining pleasure and utility, the material attributes of...