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Aristopia

[[Speculative fiction]] [[Utopian and dystopian fiction|Utopian fiction]] [[Science fiction]] Canavan, Gerry (2018). ''The Cambridge History of Science Fiction''. Cambridge Univ...

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Aristopia: A Romance-History of the New World is an 1895utopian novel by Castello Holford, considered the first novel-length alternate history in English (and among the earliest alternate histories in general).[2]

Though part of the major wave utopian and dystopian literature that distinguished the final decades of the nineteenth century,[3][4] Holford's book reverses the normal stance of utopian projection: instead of imagining a better society at a future time or in a far-off place, he supposes that the founding of the United States occurred under different conditions and follows its development forward to a superior society in his own day.

The English playwright Henry Arthur Jones was taken with the idea of Aristopia, and used it in his own polemical writings, as in his "The Tax-Wise Men of Aristopia"[5] and his My Dear Wells.[6]

Holford was not the first writer in English to employ the term "Aristopia." The eighteenth-century freethinkerJohn Fransham (1730–1810) left a posthumous manuscript titled Memorablilia Classica, which contains a piece called "The Code of Aristopia, or Scheme for a Perfect Government."[7]

Plot summary

Ralph Morton, an early settler in Virginia, discovers a reef made of solid gold. He cannily uses his wealth to build a planned society called Aristopia (Greek for "the best place"), based on the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, with innovations and adaptations of his own. In Aristopia, all the land is owned by the government, and only leased to businesses and private citizens. Large-scale trade is also monopolized by the state, and inherited wealth is limited. Morton welcomes productive refugees from European conflicts —Huguenots, Irish fugitives from Cromwell's wars, and northern Italian and Swiss artisans.

The colony prospers, buys more land from the Indians, and spreads westward. Morton dies at the age of 100; his descendants and successors carry his policies forward.

Los aristopianos apoyan la Revolución Americana y, por iniciativa propia, conquistan Canadá . Aristópia llega a dominar la nueva nación, gobernando finalmente toda Norteamérica al norte de México . [ 8 ]

Referencias

  1. ↑ Canavan, Gerry (2018). The Cambridge History of Science Fiction . Cambridge University Press. ( ISBN) 978-1-31-669437-4)
  2. ↑ Brian Stableford cita dos relatos cortos,«P's Correspondence» (1845) de Nathaniel Hawthorne y «Hands Off» (1881) de Edward Everett Hale , como precedentes en la literatura estadounidense. Brian Stableford, Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia , Nueva York, CRC Press/Routledge, 2006; pp. 18-19.
  3. ↑ Kenneth M. Roemer, La necesidad obsoleta: Estados Unidos en los escritos utópicos, 1888 – 1900 , Kent, OH, Kent State University Press, 1976.
  4. ↑ Jean Pfaelzer, La novela utópica en América, 1886 – 1896: La política de la forma , Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984.
  5. ↑ Henry Arthur Jones, "Los hombres sabios en materia de impuestos de Aristóteles", The World's Work: A History of Our Time , vol. 41 (noviembre de 1920 - abril de 1921), pág. 240.
  6. ↑ Henry Arthur Jones, My Dear Wells: Being a Series of Letters Addressed by Arthur Henry Jones to Mr. HG Wells, Upon Bolshevism, Collectivism, Internationalism, and the Distribution of Wealth , Nueva York, EP Dutton, 1921; pág. 242.
  7. ↑ "Fransham, John" . Diccionario de Biografía Nacional . Londres: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 
  8. ↑ Everett F. Bleiler con Richard Bleiler, Ciencia ficción: Los primeros años , Kent, OH, Kent State University Press, 1990; pág. 369.