List of dystopian literature
Appearance
This is a list of notable works of dystopian literature. A dystopia is an unpleasant (typically repressive) society, often propagandized as being utopian. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction states that dystopian works depict a negative view of "the way the world is supposedly going in order to provide urgent propaganda for a change in direction."[1][2]
18th century
[edit]- Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift[3]
19th century
[edit]- A Sojourn in the City of Amalgamation (1835) by Oliver Bolokitten[4][5]
- Vril, the Power of the Coming Race (1871) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, originally printed as The Coming Race[6]
- The Begum's Fortune (1879) by Jules Verne[1]
- The Republic of the Future (1887) by Anna Bowman Dodd[7]
- Caesar's Column (1890) by Ignatius L. Donnelly[8]
- Pictures of the Socialistic Future (1891) by Eugen Richter[9]
- "The Repairer of Reputations" (1895) by Robert W. Chambers[10]
- When The Sleeper Wakes (1899) by H. G. Wells[1]
20th century
[edit]1900s
[edit]- The First Men in the Moon (1901) by H. G. Wells[1]
- The Iron Heel (1908) by Jack London[1][5]
- The Machine Stops (1909) by E. M. Forster[1]
- The Lunar Trilogy (1911) by Jerzy Żuławski[11]
1910s
[edit]- The Heads of Cerberus (1919) by "Francis Stevens" (Gertrude Barrows Bennett)[12]
1920s
[edit]- R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots (1921) by Karel Čapek[13]
- We (1921) by Yevgeny Zamyatin[1]
1930s
[edit]- Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley[1]
- Cat Country (1932/1933) by Lao She[14]
- War with the Newts (1936) by Karel Čapek[15]
- Swastika Night (1937) by Katharine Burdekin[12][16]
- Anthem (1938) by Ayn Rand[1][17]
- Invitation to a Beheading (1938) by Vladimir Nabokov[18]
1940s
[edit]- Darkness at Noon (1940) by Arthur Koestler[19]
- "If This Goes On—" (1940) by Robert A. Heinlein[1]
- Kallocain (1940) by Karin Boye[20]
- That Hideous Strength (1945) by C. S. Lewis[17]
- Bend Sinister (1947) by Vladimir Nabokov[21]
- Ape and Essence (1948) by Aldous Huxley[1]
- Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell[22][23]
1950s
[edit]- Player Piano (1952) by Kurt Vonnegut[24]
- Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury[1][23]
- Love Among the Ruins (1953) by Evelyn Waugh[17]
- The Space Merchants (1953) by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth[23]
- The John Franklin Letters (1959) by anonymous (probably Revilo P. Oliver)[5]
1960s
[edit]- Facial Justice (1960) by L. P. Hartley[25]
- The Old Men at the Zoo (1961) by Angus Wilson[23]
- A Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess[1]
- Nova Express (1964) by William S. Burroughs[1]
- The Penultimate Truth (1964) by Philip K. Dick[1]
- Make Room! Make Room! (1966) by Harry Harrison[1]
- The White Mountains (1967) by John Christopher[1]
- A Very Private Life (1968) by Michael Frayn[26]
- Camp Concentration (1968) by Thomas M. Disch[23]
- The City of Gold and Lead (1968) by John Christopher[1]
- The Pool of Fire (1968) by John Christopher[1]
- Stand on Zanzibar (1968) by John Brunner[1]
- The Jagged Orbit (1969) by John Brunner[1]
1970s
[edit]- This Perfect Day (1970) by Ira Levin[27]
- The Lathe of Heaven (1971) by Ursula K. Le Guin[28]
- 334 (1972) by Thomas M. Disch[12]
- The Sheep Look Up (1972) by John Brunner[1]
- Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974) by Philip K. Dick[29]
- Walk to the End of the World (1974) by Suzy McKee Charnas[1]
- The Shockwave Rider (1975) by John Brunner[1]
- The Female Man (1975) by Joanna Russ[23]
- Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) by Marge Piercy[1]
- The Dark Tower[30] (1977) – unfinished, attributed to C. S. Lewis,[30] published as The Dark Tower and Other Stories
- A Scanner Darkly (1977) by Philip K. Dick[31]
- Alongside Night (1979) by J. Neil Schulman[32]
1980s
[edit]- Riddley Walker (1980) by Russell Hoban[33]
- Lanark: A Life in Four Books (1981) by Alasdair Gray[34]
- Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988) by William Gibson[35][36]
- The Handmaid's Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood[1][23]
- In the Country of Last Things (1985) by Paul Auster
- Moscow 2042 (1986) by Vladimir Voinovich[37]
- Obernewtyn Chronicles (1987–2008) by Isobelle Carmody[38]
- When the Tripods Came (1988) by John Christopher[1]
1990s
[edit]Fiction
[edit]- Serpent's Walk (1991) by Randolph D. Calverhall[5]
- The Children of Men (1992) by P. D. James[39]
- Fatherland by Robert Harris[40]
- Gun, with Occasional Music (1994) by Jonathan Lethem[41]
- Battle Royale (1999) by Koushun Takam[42]
Young adult fiction
[edit]- The Giver (1993) by Lois Lowry[43]
21st century
[edit]2000s
[edit]Fiction
[edit]- Feed (2002) by M. T. Anderson[44]
- Cloud Atlas (2004) by David Mitchell[45]
- Divided Kingdom (2005) by Rupert Thomson[46]
- Day of the Oprichnik (2006) by Vladimir Sorokin[47]
- Z213: Exit (2009) by Dimitris Lyacos[48]
Young adult fiction
[edit]- Noughts and Crosses (2001) by Malorie Blackman[49]
- Checkmate (2005) by Malorie Blackman[50]
- Uglies (2005) by Scott Westerfeld[51]
- The Forest of Hands and Teeth (2009) by Carrie Ryan[52]
2010s
[edit]Fiction
[edit]- Shimoneta (2012) by Hirotaka Akagi[53]
- The Circle (2013) by Dave Eggers[54]
- MaddAddam (2013) by Margaret Atwood)[55]
- The Office of Mercy (2013) by Ariel Djanikian[56]
- Wool (2013) by Hugh Howey[57]
Young adult fiction
[edit]- Mockingjay 2010) by Suzanne Collins[58]
- Monsters of Men (2010) by Patrick Ness[59]
- Under the Never Sky (2012) by Veronica Rossi[60]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa Stableford, Brian (1993). "Dystopias". In Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2nd ed.). Orbit, London. pp. 360–362. ISBN 1-85723-124-4.
- ^ "Life of chaos, life of hope: Dystopian literature for young adults". Retrieved June 4, 2021.
- ^ Houston, Chlöe (2007). "Utopia, Dystopia or Anti-utopia? Gulliver's Travels and the Utopian Mode of Discourse". Utopian Studies. 18 (3, Irish Utopian). Penn State University Press: 425–442. doi:10.2307/20719885. JSTOR 20719885.
- ^ Kennedy, Randall (2003). Interracial Intimacies. New York: Pantheon Books. p. 134. ISBN 978-0-375-40255-5.
- ^ a b c d Berger, J.M. (2016). "The Turner Legacy: The Storied Origins and Enduring Impact of White Nationalism's Deadly Bible". International Centre for Counter-Terrorism. 7 (8). The Hague. doi:10.19165/2016.1.11.
- ^ Marina Yaguello. Lunatic Lovers of language. Imaginary languages and their inventors. London: Athlone Press, 1991. 0-485-11303-1. p. 31.
- ^ Jean Pfaelzer (1984). The Utopian Novel in America 1886–1896: The Politics of Form. Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press; pp. 81–6.
- ^ Pfaelzer, pp. 120–40.
- ^ Art, Carden (June 28, 2010). "Looking Hard at 'Pictures of the Socialistic Future'". Forbes.
- ^ Barron, Neil (1998). What Do I Read Next?. Detroit: Gale Group. p. 299. ISBN 0-7876-2150-1.
"The Repairer of Reputations", which offers a dystopic vision of the future...
- ^ Uniwersytet Jagielloński (1986). Prace historycznoliterackie. Wydawn. Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego. p. 70. ISBN 9788301066154. Retrieved May 10, 2013.
- ^ a b c Mark Bould, Sherryl Vint, (2011) The Routledge Concise History of Science Fiction. Routledge, ISBN 0-415-43571-4 (p.23).
- ^ "Another classic dystopian work, Karel Čapek's R.U.R. (1921) was written at the same time as Zamyatin's work". The Cybernetic Imagination in Science Fiction. Patricia S. Warrick, MIT Press, 1980 ISBN 0-262-73061-8, (p.48).
- ^ HO, KOON-KI TOMMY (1987). "Cat Country: A Dystopian Satire". Modern Chinese Literature. 3 (1/2): 71–89. ISSN 8755-8963. JSTOR 41492507.
- ^ Cornis-Pope Marcel & John Neubauer (2004). History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Volume 3. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing, 2004. p. 183. ISBN 90-272-3455-8.
...the dystopic satire Válka s mloky (The War With The Newts)...
- ^ " a feminist novelist called Katherine Burdekin published under a male pseudonym, Murray Constantine, an anti-fascist dystopia with the title Swastika Night.."Alkeline van Lenning, Marrie Bekker, Ine Vanwesenbeeck, (p.88) Feminist Utopias in a Post Modern Era. Tilburg University Press, 1997. ISBN 9036197473
- ^ a b c Tom Moylan; Raffaella Baccolini (2003). Dark horizons: science fiction and the dystopian imagination. Taylor and Francis Books. ISBN 0-415-96613-2. Retrieved July 29, 2011.
- ^ Booker, M. Keith (2002). The Post-utopian Imagination: American Culture in the Long 1950s. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 50. ISBN 0-313-32165-5.
Invitation also resembles other absurdist dystopias of the 1930s, such as Ruthven Todd's Over the Mountain (1939) and Rex Warner's The Wild Goose Chase.
- ^ Clute, John (1993). "Koestler, Arthur". In Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2nd ed.). Orbit, London. p. 675. ISBN 1-85723-124-4.
- ^ Hickman, John (2009). "When Science Fiction Writers Used Fictional Drugs: Rise and Fall of the Twentieth-Century Drug Dystopia". Utopian Studies. 20 (1). Penn State University Press: 141–170. doi:10.2307/20719933. JSTOR 20719933.
- ^ Clute, John (1993). "Nabokov, Vladimir". In Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2nd ed.). Orbit, London. p. 854. ISBN 1-85723-124-4.
- ^ Clute, John (1993). "Orwell, George". In Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2nd ed.). Orbit, London. p. 896. ISBN 1-85723-124-4.
- ^ a b c d e f g Moorcock, Michael (January 22, 2009). "The best dystopias". The Guardian. London. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved February 1, 2014.
- ^ Stableford, Brian (1993). "Vonnegut, Kurt Jr.". In Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2nd ed.). Orbit, London. p. 1289. ISBN 1-85723-124-4.
- ^ Knud Sørensen (1971) "Language and Society in L. P. Hartley's 'Facial Justice,'" Orbis Litterarum 26 (1), 68–84.
- ^ "Michael Frayn's comedy has more usually taken an anti-utopian turn. He has written one explicitly dystopian novel, A Very Private Life...", "Whitehall Farces" Patrick Parrinder, London Review of Books, October 8, 1992.
- ^ Clute, John (1993). "Levin, Ira". In Clute, John; Nicholls, Peter (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2nd ed.). Orbit, London. p. 715. ISBN 1-85723-124-4.
- ^ "Ursula Le Guin Q&A | By genre | Guardian Unlimited Books". London: Books.guardian.co.uk. February 9, 2004. Retrieved May 29, 2010.
- ^ Survey of Science Fiction Literature
- ^ a b Downing, David C. (September 1, 1995). Planets in Peril: A Critical Study of C.S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy. University of Massachusetts Press. p. 157. ISBN 0-87023-997-X.
- ^ Walter, Damien (December 17, 2012). "Darkness in literature: Philip K Dick's A Scanner Darkly". The Guardian. Retrieved August 4, 2013.
- ^ Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 1979.
- ^ Mullan, John (November 12, 2010). "Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban". The Guardian. Retrieved May 27, 2013.
- ^ "The hero migrates from "real" Glasgow to Unthank, an underground dystopia". John Clute, Science Fiction: A Visual Encyclopedia. Dorling Kindersley, 1995 (p. 231).
- ^ Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 1984.
- ^ Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 1986
- ^ "BOOKS OF THE TIMES". The New York Times. June 2, 1987.
- ^ Strauss, Victoria. "Book Review: Obernewtyn Vol. 1, The Obernewtyn Chronicles", SF Site, 1999
- ^ Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 1993. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/pd-james/the-children-of-men/
- ^ Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 1992. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/robert-harris/8838/
- ^ Phil Daoust (September 1, 2001). "A kangaroo in a dinner jacket". The Guardian. London. Retrieved May 29, 2010.
- ^ Koehler, Robert (January 23, 2001). "Battle Royale". Variety Magazine. Retrieved January 23, 2007.
- ^ Natalie Babbitt, "The Hidden Cost of Contentment", Washington Post May 9, 1993, p. X15.
- ^ Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2002. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/mt-anderson/feed/
- ^ Kloszewski, M. (June 15, 2004). Library Journal, 129(11): 56.
- ^ D. J. Taylor: "Anima Attraction", The Guardian (April 16, 2005).
- ^ Kotkin, Stephen (March 11, 2011). "A Dystopian Tale of Russia's Future". The New York Times.
- ^ Rivieccio, Genna (February 12, 2017). "Poena Damni Z213: Exit by Dimitris Lyacos Gets Worthy Translation from Shorsha Sullivan". theopiatemagazine.com. Retrieved January 18, 2023.
- ^ The Guardian (January 23, 2001) [full citation needed]
- ^ The Guardian July 27, 2005 [full citation needed]
- ^ My Top Five...Dystopian Novels for Teens The Guardian, August 4, 2014. Retrieved January 25, 2015.
- ^ Karen Brooks-Reese: "Zombies Rise in Teen Lit", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 26, 2009
- ^ Dempsey, Joe (October 28, 2015). "The Sex-Obsessed Cyberpunk Dystopia of Shimoneta". Anime News Network. Retrieved November 9, 2015.
- ^ Kakutani, Michiko (October 3, 2013). "Inside the World of Big Data: 'The Circle,' Dave Eggers's New Novel". nytimes.com. Retrieved January 20, 2014.
- ^ Newitz, Annalee (September 13, 2013). "Atwood Imagines Humanity's Next Iteration In 'MaddAddam'". npr.com. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
- ^ "Fiction Book Review: The Office of Mercy by Ariel Djanikian. Viking, $26.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-670-02586-2". www.publishersweekly.com. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
- ^ "Wool", a dystopian series about a group of underground people who get all of their information about the outside world through a single, digital screen...""Self-published e-book author: 'Most of my months are six-figure months'". CNN. September 7, 2012. Retrieved September 8, 2012.
- ^ Carpenter, Susan (August 23, 2010). "Book review: 'Mockingjay'". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Tjala (March 2011). "Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness – review". theguardian.com.
- ^ "Rossi's YA Dystopian Romance Lands at Warner Brothers". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved October 19, 2012.