In the late nineteenth century a spectre haunted Europe and the United States: the spectre of
utopia. This book re-examines the rise of utopian thought at the fin de siècle situating it in
the social and political contradictions of the time and exploring the ways in which it
articulated a deepening sense that the capitalist system might not be insuperable after all.
The study pays particular attention to Edward Bellamy's seminal utopian fiction Looking
Backward (1888) embedding it in a number of unfamiliar contexts and reading its richest
passages against the grain but it also offers detailed discussions of William Morris H.G.
Wells and Oscar Wilde. Both historical and theoretical in its approach this book constitutes a
substantial contribution to our understanding of the utopian imaginary and an original
analysis of the counter-culture in which it thrived at the fin de siècle.
