Overview

This Companion presents an authoritative study of British utopian literature and culture in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Written by leading scholars, it offers a wide-ranging account of utopian thinking in novels, plays, films, TV, fanzines, and poetry. Scholars and students interested in the utopian imagination will find nuanced analyses of British texts, situated within their materialist contexts. With a particular focus on countercultural and subcultural narratives, the book explores how British utopian visions of better societies offer a forceful critique of contemporary inequities such as racism, gender-based violence, class politics, and ecological harm. Blending the utopian with other genres, including the dystopia, the post-apocalypse, and ecocatastrophe narratives, the texts discussed reveal powerful images of utopian possibility. These works offer us vital imaginative and critical resources at a time of ongoing political, economic, and social crises.

Full Product Details

Author:   Caroline Edwards (Birkbeck College, University of London)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
Weight:   0.326kg
ISBN:  

9781009690492

ISBN 10:   1009690493
Pages:   326
Publication Date:   12 February 2026
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

1. The utopian impulse in British literature and culture since 1945 Caroline Edwards; Part I. The Dream of Imperial Ruins: 2. Cosy catastrophes: ambivalent utopias amidst the wreckage Roger Luckhurst; 3. The 1960s: new wave, new worlds Tom Dillon; 4. Post-imperial melancholy in the long 1970s Andrew M. Butler; Part II. Building New Communities: 5. The British counterculture, utopia, and class David Wilkinson; 6. Staging utopian subjects: contemporary British theatre beyond the barriers Siân Adiseshiah; 7. Utopian communities in Scottish fiction Timothy Baker; Part III. From Crisis to Hope: Utopian Aesthetics; 8. Doris Lessing: surviving utopia David Sergeant; 9. Utopian articulations in experimental British poetry Juha Virtanen; 10. Utopian realism and race Sara Upstone; Part IV. Case Studies: 11. Naomi Mitchison's Memoirs of a Spacewoman: a critical feminist utopia Katie Stone; 12. Ankh-Morpork, anti-utopia: Terry Pratchett's Night Watch and Making Money Jo Lindsay Walton; 13. Some dialectics of utopia in China Miéville's Bas-Lag trilogy Carl Freedman.

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Author Information

Professor Caroline Edwards has published widely on contemporary literature, critical theory, and science fiction. Caroline's research has been featured by BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3, BBC One South East, the New Statesman, Times Higher Education, the Guardian, SFX Magazine, and in a dedicated exhibition at the Museum of London.

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