More’s Utopia: A 500th birthday celebration

Thomas More’s Utopia, first published in Latin in 1516, is one of the world’s most famous books. It has given us the adjective ‘Utopian’, a mode of thought (‘Utopianism’), a literary genre. Yet, at some point in its 500 year history, the concept of ‘Utopia’ became detached from More’s book. It came to express an ideal, which has its own legacy in the shop names it inspires.