Collier's New Encyclopedia

A complete general encyclopedia of 1921 — the world as it was understood just after the Great War, from Aachen to Zwingli, across twelve volumes and six thousand pages.

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Utopia

the name given by Sir Thomas More to the imaginary island which he makes the scene of his famous political romance "The Ideal Republic, Which Is the New Island of Utopia."

More represents this island as having been discovered by Raphael Hythloday, a companion of Amerigo Vespucci, but it of course is England, its capital Amaurote, London. Its laws and institutions are represented as described in one afternoon's talk at Antwerp, occupying the whole of the second book, to which, indeed, the first serves but as a framework. More's romance, or rather satire, obtained a wide popularity, and supplied (though incorrectly enough) the epithet Utopian in all impracticable schemes for the improvement of society.

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