Paints a fantastical picture of a distant island where society is perfected and people live in harmony. This work is also an attack on the author's own corrupt, dangerous times, and on the failings of humanity.

Thomas More was born in 1478. He succeeded Wolsey as Lord Chancellor of England, but came into conflict with the king, Henry VIII, by refusing to acknowledge him as sole head of the Church. Charged with high treason, More steadfastly refused to takean oath impugning the pope's authority or upholding the king's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. He was beheaded in 1535.