Contents Preface ............................................................................................ ix 1. Introduction .................................................................................1 2. The Background of the Revolution Debate ..............................25 2.1 Changing Frameworks: Stages of the Revolution Debate........................................26 2.2 Free Debate: November 1789 – May 1792 ........................29 2.3 Radicalisation and Repression: May 1792 – December 1794 ...............................................32 2.4 Eclipse: December 1794–1796 ..........................................39 2.5 The Aftermath of the Revolution Debate and Concluding Remarks ...................................................41 3. The Revolution Debate and its Main Protagonists ...................47 3.1 Free Debate ........................................................................47 3.1.1 Richard Price and the Discourse on the Love of Our Country ........................................................48 3.1.2 Edmund Burke and the Reflections on the Revolution in France ....................................52 3.1.3 Thomas Paine and The Rights of Man .....................58 3.1.4 James Mackintosh and Vindiciae Gallicae ..............62 3.1.5 Mary Wollstonecraft and the Vindication of the Rights of Woman ............................................67 3.2 Radicalisation and Repression ...........................................73 3.2.1 William Godwin and Political Justice ....................73 3.2.1.1 The Author .................................................73 3.2.1.2 Political Justice in Secondary Literature ...75 3.2.1.3 Key Concepts in Political Justice ..............78 3.2.2 Arthur Young and The Example of France, A Warning to Britain................................................85 3.2.3 Address to the Nation, from the London Corresponding Society ............................................90 3.2.4 Richard Brothers and A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times ....................................93 3.2.5 Joseph Priestley and The Present State of Europe Compared with Ancient Prophecies............97 3.3 Eclipse ..............................................................................102 3.3.1 Thomas Paine and The Age of Reason ..................103 3.3.2 John Reeves and Thoughts on the English Government ........................................107 3.3.3 Edmund Burke and Two Letters on a Regicide Peace ..............................................112 3.3.4 John Thelwall and Rights of Nature, against the Usurpations of Establishments ........... 115 4. Utopia: Theory and Appearance in 18th-Century England .....121 4.1 Theoretical Considerations ..............................................121 4.1.1 The Essence of Utopia according to Ernst Bloch .......................................122 4.1.2 The Narrower Approach: Utopia as a Literary Genre ....................................130 4.1.3 Utopia and Politics ................................................136 4.1.4 Utopia and the 18th Century: General Characteristics..........................................141 4.2 Political Utopia in 18th-Century English Literature ........149 4.2.1 General Considerations and the Beginning of the Century ........................................................149 4.2.2 Dupont ...................................................................152 4.2.3 Morton ...................................................................155 4.2.4 Claeys ....................................................................156 5. The English Utopia at the Time of the Revolution Debate.....165 5.1 General Considerations ....................................................166 5.2 Political Utopias between 1789 and 1796 .......................169 5.2.1 Prelude: Before the Revolution Debate ................173 5.2.2 A Trip to the Island of Equality, or, An Extract from Russian Voyages (c. 1792) ..........179 vi 5.2.3 Utopia in Godwin’s Political Justice (1793).........182 5.2.3.1 Godwin and Utopia ..................................182 5.2.3.2 Book V, Chapter XXII: “Of the Future History of Political Societies” ......184 5.2.3.3 Book VIII: “Of Property” ........................187 5.2.4 Voyage to the Moon Strongly Recommended to All Lovers of Real Freedom (1793) ...................210 5.2.5 Thomas Spence and Spensonia .............................225 5.2.5.1 Biographical Information .........................225 5.2.5.2 Spence’s Political Conviction ..................227 5.2.5.3 Spence and Utopia ...................................232 5.2.5.4 The Marine Republic and A Further Account of Spensonia (1794) ...................234 5.2.6 Thomas Northmore’s Memoirs of Planetes (1795) ....................................................................244 5.2.6.1 Northmore in Secondary Literature .........244 5.2.6.2 Memoirs of Planetes, or A Sketch of the Laws and Manners of Makar .........246 5.2.7 William Hodgson’s The Commonwealth of Reason (1795) ...................................................263 5.2.7.1 Hodgson in Secondary Literature ............263 5.2.7.2 The Commonwealth of Reason ................265 5.2.8 Modern Gulliver’s Travels (1796) .........................279 5.2.9 Prospect – the Aftermath of the Revolution Debate ...........................................293 5.2.9.1 Libellus: or, A Brief Sketch of the Kingdom of Gotham (1798) ...........294 6. Conclusion ...............................................................................301 7. Bibliography ............................................................................319 7.1 Primary Sources ...............................................................319 7.2 Secondary Sources ...........................................................323 8. Index ........................................................................................335 vii.