Travels in Icaria /

With translation and publication of an English version of Cabet's Voyage en Adventures de Lord Villiam Carisdall en Icaria, Roberts (foreign language, Univ. of Southern Indiana) and Sutton (history, Western Illinois Univ.) have made a major contribution to the literature of utopianism. Heretofore, only French editions of this famed 1840 utopian tract have been available. This new work is especially useful for students of the American phase of Cabet's utopian experiments, which included colonies at Nauvoo, Illinois, and Cheltenham, Missouri, and later in Adams County, Iowa, and Cloverdale, California. Roberts' translation is first-rate, and she provides a thoughtful translator's note as part of the novel's introduction. Sutton's essay likewise offers much; it is comprehensive and clearly explains the importance of Cabet. For a brief time before its decline in the 1840s, Icarianism was a powerful force in France. When transplanted to the New World in the late 1840s, it initially flourished and then languished before dissolving in the 1890s. Still, the quest for Icaria proved to be remarkably long-lasting, even though the comprehensive utopian visions Cabet had for his egalitarian and harmonious society were never fully realized. Internal bickering and economic weaknesses were the principle culprits. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. H. R. Grant Clemson University

While exiled in Great Britain, French Socialist thinker Cabet (1788-1856) envisioned the utopian community portrayed in this novel, translated here for the first time into English. The original work, Voyage en Icarie, is made up of three parts, of which Roberts translates only the first, the fictional account of a British lord's visit to the island nation of Icaria. Typical of the utopian premise, Cabet describes the Icarians as happy people whose lives are filled with work, arts, family, and community; crime is nonexistent. Of particular interest is the emphasis on education, the arts, and gender equality, though women are denied voting rights. Similar in premise to Sir Thomas More's Utopia, this work inspired tens of thousands of French to join Cabet's Socialist reform movement. Some of these followers settled in America in the late 1840s and attempted to live out the ideals detailed in Cabet's book until the 1890s. An important addition to the study of utopian fiction and communal living in the United States, this is highly recommended for public and academic libraries.-Sheila Kasperek, Mansfield Univ. Lib., PA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.