Utopia, the name given to Sir Thomas More to the imaginary island which he makes the scene of his famous political romance "The Ideal Republic, which is the New Island of Utopia." More represents this island as has having been discovered by Raphael Hythloday, a companion of Amerigo Vespucci, but it of course is England, the capital Amaurote, London. Its laws and institutions are represented as described in one afternoon's talk at Antwerp, occupying the whole of the second book, to which, indeed, the first serves but as a framework. More's romance, or rather satire, obtained a wide popularity, and supplied (though incorrectly enough) the epithet Utopian to all impracticable schemes for the improvement of society.


Entry from Everybody's Cyclopedia, 1912.