Last Utopians

<p><b>The entertaining story of four utopian writers--Edward Bellamy William Morris Edward Carpenter and Charlotte Perkins Gilman--and their continuing influence today</b> <p/>In this lively literary history Michael Robertson introduces readers to a vital strain of utopianism that seized the imaginations of four American and British writers during an extraordinary period of literary and social experiment. The publication of Edward Bellamy's <i>Looking Backward</i> in 1888 opened the floodgates to an unprecedented wave of utopian writing. William Morris the Arts and Crafts pioneer was a committed socialist whose <i>News from Nowhere</i> envisions a workers' Arcadia. Edward Carpenter boldly argued that homosexuals constitute a utopian vanguard. Charlotte Perkins Gilman a women's rights activist and the author of The Yellow Wallpaper wrote numerous utopian fictions including <i>Herland</i> a visionary tale of an all-female society. These writers believed in radical gender and class equality envisioning new forms of familial and romantic relationships and were committed to living a simple life rooted in a restored natural world. And their legacy remains with us today from Occupy Wall Street to the Radical Faeries.</p>