The 111 Greatest Utopian and Dystopian Works
▽ Introduction
△ Introduction
It can be surprising how many fictional works explore utopias and dystopias. Offhand, a few old classics may come to mind (Thomas More's Utopia, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Samuel Butler's Erewhon), along with a couple of famous modern titles (George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World—maybe Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 or Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale). But our database of great books includes hundreds of works counted as utopian and dystopian fiction.
A utopia (literally "no place") is a well-organized society imagined as fundamentally better than the author's—close to perfect perhaps—while a dystopia (literally "bad place") is one imagined as fundamentally much worse, providing a horrible existence for its inhabitants. Sometimes such an imagined society is shown to have both utopian and dystopian elements. Often a writer creates a utopian or dystopian world by extrapolating from current trends in order to praise or criticize aspects of our present society.
Note, utopian and dystopian works are to be distinguished from depictions of postapocalyptic worlds, which arise after the demise of organized societies. They are also distinguished from depictions of fictional societies that simply differ from ours without being judged as fundamentally good or bad or reflecting on our own society by comparison.
This list covers the greatest utopian and dystopian fiction of all times, places and cultures. It focuses on major fictional works, including novels, novellas and plays.
The selection is based on the continuing research carried out for The Greatest Literature of All Time and further research into utopian and dystopian literature acclaimed by the world's readers, writers, critics and scholars.
Latest update: September 2, 2026
391 BCE
Assemblywomen
by Aristophanes, Greece
Play, also known as Congresswomen, Women in Parliament, or Women in Power, originally Ecclesiazousae
c.165–050 BCE
Islands of the Sun
by Iambulus, Greece
Novel, also known as The Adventures of Iambulus in the Southern Ocean
c.1405 CE
The Book of the City of Ladies
by Christine de Pizan, France
Novel, originally Le Livre de la Cité des Dames
1516
Utopia
by Thomas More, England
Novella
1532–1564
The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel
by François Rabelais, France
Novel in five volumes, originally Grands annales tresueritables des gestes merveilleux du grand Gargantua et Pantagruel, includes volumes Pantagruel, Gargantua, The Third Book of Pantagruel, The Fourth Book of Pantagruel and The Fifth Book of Pantagruel.
c.1552
Wise and Crazy World
by Anton Francesco Doni, Italy
Novel, also known as New World or Star City, originally Il mondo savio e pazzo
1593
Arcadia
by Philip Sidney, England
Novel, also known as The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
1605
The Discovery of a New World
by Joseph Hall, England
Novel, also known as An Old World and a New or Another World and Yet the Same, originally Mundus Alter et Idem
1626
New Atlantis
by Francis Bacon, England
Novel
1638
The Man in the Moone
by Francis Godwin, England
Novel
1648
New Jerusalem, or the Christian Institution
attributed to Samuel Gott, England
Novel, originally Nova Solyma, sive Institutio Christiani
1657
The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon
by Sauvien Cyrano de Bergerac, France
Novel, also known as The Other World or A Voyage to the Moon, originally Histoire comique, par Monsieur de Cyrano Bergerac, Contenant les Estats et Empires de la Lune
1666
The Blazing World
by Margaret Cavendish, England
Novel, also known as The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World
1675–1679
The History of Sevarambians
by Denis Vairasse, France
Novel, also known as The History of the Sevarites or Sevarambi
1676
The Southern Land, Known
by Gabriel de Foigny, France
Novel, originally La Terre Australe connue
1699
The Adventures of Telemachus, Son of Ulysses
by François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon, France
Novel, originally Les Aventures de Télémaque, fils d'Ulysse
1726
Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift, Ireland
Novel
1759
Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia
by Samuel Johnson, England
Novella
Candide
by François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire, France
Novella, originally Candide, ou l'Optimisme
1771
The Year 2440
by Louis-Sébastien Mercier, France
Novel, subtitled A Dream If Ever There Was One; also known as Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hundred or Astraea's Return, or The Halcyon Days of France in the Year 2440: A Dream; originally L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fut jamais
1776
The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom
by Ignacy Krasicki, Poland
Novel, also known as The Adventures of Nicholas Empiricus, originally Mikołaja Doświadczyńskiego przypadki
1840
Voyage to Icaria
by Étienne Cabet, France
Novel, also known as Travels in Icaria, originally Voyage en Icarie
1864
Notes from Underground
by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russia
Novella
1870
The History of a Town
by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Russia
Novel, also known as Foolsburg: The History of a Town
1871
The Coming Race
Novel, also known as
Vril: The Power of the Coming Race and
The New Utopia
It's an irony of sorts that Edward Bulwer-Lytton's most influential book may be his last, one of his shortest, written in a genre different from everything else he had done to that point, and not even published under his own.... Critique • Quotes • Wikipedia • Amazon
1872
Erewhon
Novel
I'm not sure we should even call Erewhon a novel. If it is one, it's a novel of ideas. Not like, say, one of Aldous Huxley's novels of ideas though. Great ideas don't play out among characters or decide the plot. In Butler's.... Critique • Quotes • Text • Wikipedia • Amazon
1888
A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder
by James de Mille, Canada
Novel
Looking Backward: 2000–1887
by Edward Bellamy, United States
Novel
1890
Mizora
by Mary E. Bradley Lane, United States
Novel
1891
News from Nowhere
by William Morris, England
Novel
1894
2894, or The Fossil Man (A Midwinter Night's Dream)
by Walter Browne, United States
Novel
A Traveler from Altruria
by William Dean Howells, United States
Novel
1895
The Time Machine
by H.G. Wells, England
Novella
1897
Equality
by Edward Bellamy, United States
Novel
1900
NEQUA or The Problem of the Ages
by Jack Adams (A.O. Grigsby and Mary P. Lowe), United States
Novel
1901
The Purple Cloud
by M.P. Shiel, England
Novel
1905
Sultana's Dream
by Begum Rokeya, Bangladesh
Novel
A Modern Utopia
by H.G. Wells, England
Novel
1908
Red Star
by Alexander Bogdanov, Russia
Novel
The Iron Heel
by Jack London, United States
Novel
1909
Beatrice the Sixteenth
by Irene Clyde, England
Novel, subtitled Being the Personal Narrative of Mary Hatherley, M.B., Explorer and Geographer
1915
Herland
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, United States
Novel
1920
R.U.R.
by Karel Čapek, Czechoslovakia
Play, subtitled Rossum's Universal Robots
1924
We
by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Russia
Novel, originally My
1925
The Trial
by Franz Kafka, Austria
Novel, originally Das Schloß
1930
The Foundation Pit
by Andrei Platonov, Russia
Novel, originally Kotlovan
1932
Brave New World
Novel
I wonder if people who refer to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World as a cautionary tale—that is, those who aren't confusing it with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four—could actually spell out what it is cautioning against.... Critique • Quotes • Wikipedia • Amazon
1933
Cat Country
by Lao She, China
Novel
Lost Horizon
by James Hilton, England
Novel
1936
War with the Newts
by Karel Čapek, Czechoslovakia
Novel, also known as Salamander Wars, originally Válka s Mloky
Invitation to a Beheading
by Vladimir Nabokov, Russia
Novel
1938
For Us, the Living
by Robert A. Heinlein, United States
Novel
Anthem
by Ayn Rand, United States
Novella
1940
Kallocain
by Karin Boye, Sweden
Novel
1948
Walden Two
by B.F. Skinner, United States
Novel
The World of Null-A
Novel
1949
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Novel, also known as
1984
George Orwell's dystopian novel has had the fortune to be acclaimed in the West by two usually opposed groups—right wingers and left wingers. The former saw it as a denunciation of collectivism in all its forms.... Critique • Quotes • Wikipedia • Amazon
Heliopolis
by Ernst Jünger, Germany
Novel
1950–1956
The Chronicles of Narnia
by C.S. Lewis, England
Novel series includes
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe;
Prince Caspian;
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; and others.
Let's deal with the religious aspect of the Narnia works right off the top. The idea that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) and its successive novels present a Christian allegory is raised by both detractors and.... Critique • Quotes • Wikipedia • Amazon
1952
Player Piano
by Kurt Vonnegut, United States
Novel
1953
Fahrenheit 451
Novel
It may seem Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is becoming less relevant these days, as hard-copy books are at risk of disappearing, pushed aside by digital communications. Without paper media, warnings about.... Critique • Quotes • Wikipedia • Amazon
The Space Merchants
by Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth, United States
Novel
1955
The Chrysalids
by John Wyndham, England
Novel, also known as Re-Birth
1957
Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand, United States
Novel
1960
A Canticle for Leibowitz
by Walter M. Miller, United States
Novel
1961–1985
The Noon Universe
by Arkady and Boris Strugatski, Russia
Novel series
1962
The Drowned World
by J.G. Ballard, England
Novel
A Clockwork Orange
by Anthony Burgess, England
Novel
1966
Make Room! Make Room!
by Harry Harrison, United States
Novel
The novel Make Room! Make Room! was published right in the middle of the boom in warnings about overpopulation and depletion of resources in the 1960s and early 1970s. It actually preceded a number of more famous.... Critique • Quotes • Wikipedia • Amazon
1967
Camp Concentration
by Thomas Disch, United States
Novel
1968
Stand On Zanzibar
by John Brunner, United States
Novel
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Novella, also known as Blade Runner: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
1972
The Sheep Look Up
by John Brunner, United States
Novel
1974
The Dispossessed
Novel, subtitled An Ambiguous Utopia
The Forever War
by Joe Haldeman, United States
Novel, first in The Forever War series
1975
Ecotopia
by Ernest Callenbach, United States
Novel, subtitled The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston
1976
Woman on the Edge of Time
by Marge Piercy, United States
Novel
1977
A Scanner Darkly
Novel
1978
The Stand
by Stephen King, United States
Novel
1980
Riddley Walker
by Russell Hoban, United States
Novel
1981
Lanark
by Alasdair Graye, Scotland
Novel, subtitled A Life in Four Books
1984
Neuromancer
by William Gibson, Canada
Novel
1985
The Handmaid's Tale
Novel
If you're well-versed in science fiction—or speculative fiction as it's often called—and you approach The Handmaid's Tale as an example of that genre, you may be disappointed. The world of Margaret.... Critique • Quotes • At the movies • Wikipedia • Amazon
Always Coming Home
by Ursula K. Le Guin, United States
Novel
1987–2012
Culture series
by Iain M. Banks, Scotland
Novel series includes Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, Use of Weapons, The State of the Art and others.
1990
Incandescence
by Greg Egan, Australia
Novel
1991
Diaspora
by Greg Egan, Australia
Novel
1992
Fatherland
by Robert Harris, England
Novel
The Children of Men
by P.D. James, England
Novel
Snow Crash
by Neal Stephenson, United States
Novel
1993
Parable of the Sower
by Lois Lowry, United States
Novel
The Giver
by Lois Lowry, United States
Novel, first in The Giver Quartet
1996
Infinite Jest
by David Foster Wallace, United States
Novel
1997
3001: The Final Odyssey
by Arthur C. Clarke, England
Novel
1999
Battle Royale
by Koushun Takami, Japan
Novel, originally Batoru Rowaiaru
2001–2008
Aria
by Kozue Amano, Japan
Graphic novel series
2003
Vernon God Little
by DBC Pierre, United States
Novel
2003–2013
The MaddAddam Trilogy
Novel series includes Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam.
2005
The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak, Australia
Novel
Never Let Me Go
by Kazuo Ishiguro, England
Novel
2006
Day of the Oprichnik
by Vladimir Sorokin, Russia
Novel
2008–2010
The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins, United States
Novel series includes The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay.
2009
The City & the City
by China Miéville, England
Novel
The Windup Girl
by Paolo Bacigalupi, United States
Novel
The Maze Runner
by James Dashner, United States
Novel
2011
Ready Player One
by Ernest Cline, United States
Novel
2014
Station Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel, Canada
Novel
2016–2021
Terra Ignota
by Ada Palmer, United States
Novel series includes Too Like the Lightning, Seven Surrenders, The Will to Battle and Perhaps the Stars.
2019
Queen of the Conquered
by Kacen Callender, United States
Novel
2021
Klara and the Sun
by Kazuo Ishiguro, England
Novel
