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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

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Written from the Tower of London, these letters of Thomas More still speak powerfully today.

In the spring of 1534, Thomas More was taken to the Tower of London, and after fourteen months in prison, the brilliant author of UTOPIA, friend of Erasmus and the humanities, and former Lord Chancellor of England was beheaded on Tower Hill. Yet More wrote some of his best works as a prisoner, including a set of historically and religiously important letters.

The Last Letters of Thomas More is a superb new edition of More's prison correspondence, introduced and fully annotated for contemporary readers by Alvaro de Silva. Based on the critical edition of More's correspondence, this volume begins with letters penned by More to Cromwell and Henry VIII in February 1534 and ends with More's last words to his daughter, Margaret Roper, on the eve of his execution. More writes on a host of topics--prayer and penance, the right use of riches and power, the joys of heaven, psychological depression and suicidal temptations, the moral compromises of those who imprisoned him, and much more.

Valuable to a range of readers, this volume records the clarity of More's conscience and his readiness to die for the integrity of his religious faith. It also throws light on the literary works that More wrote during the same period and on the religious and political conditions of Tudor England. Gripping reading awaits those who delve into these pages. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The man himself
Here is the man in his own words in letters to his daughter, his king and his friends. Much from A Man for All Seasons is taken from these letters. Wonderful! ... Read more

Book Description
The English poems (c. 1492-1494) are lively and experimental works, written at a time when English poetry was in its doldrums. This collection includes verses for a series of painted hangings in More`s father`s house, a lament for Queen Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII, traditional and sober Fortune verses. ... Read more

Book Description
The Great Political Thinkers series presents critical appraisals of great political thinkers from the Greeks to present day. It focuses in particular on those thinkers who are generally recognized as being central to the evolution and development of political thought.The series will be indispensable for a clear understanding of the origin and development of political ideas and the role played by the leading protagonists of the past. ... Read more

Book Description
Few people have had as enduring an influence as Thomas More (1478-1535), who--along with Erasmus, with whom he corresponded--was the quintessential Renaissance Humanist. More had a deep understanding of the classics. He wrote poems in Latin and prepared Latin translations of Lucian's Greek dialogues. Like so many thinkers of his day, he had a strong interest in the philosophy of education. Trained as a lawyer, he was also a leading political figure of his time. He became a member of Parliament in 1504, speaker of the House of Commons in 1523, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1525, and Lord Chancellor in 1529. But most importantly, he was a theologian and religious leader and had once contemplated pursuing a religious vocation. He challenged the influence of Lutheranism; debated Christopher St. German about the limits of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England; and wrote theological treatises on the sufferings of Christ, the nature of heresies, and other religious topics. Though he saw himself as the king's servant, he refused to acknowledge the authority of Henry VIII as spiritual head of England. For his defiance, he was executed; for his martyrdom, he was canonized. Many of his views are reflected in what is perhaps his most famous work, Utopia, in which he offers a fictional portrait of an ideal society. Research on More has flourished in the centuries after his death, particularly since his canonization. This bibliography includes more than 1600 annotated entries for major works on his life and writings not only written in English, but also in French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. It contains entries for books, chapters, journal articles, and numerous unpublished dissertations. The opening chapters cover reference works, editions, and editorial concerns. A chapter on biography precedes sections on general critical studies; More's reception, reputation, and influence; the religious and philosophical background of his works; and his language, style, and use of classical and Christian sources. Individual chapters then treat particular major works, such as his History of King Richard III, or clusters of his shorter writings, such as his English and Latin poems. Entries include cross-references, and the volume closes with a detailed index. ... Read more

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Introduction by Jenny MezciemsDownload Description
First published in 1516, during a period of astonishing political and technological change, Sir Thomas More's utopia depicts an imaginary society free of private property, sexual discrimination and religious intolerance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (53)

Unfortunately too 16th century in its thinking
I bought this book because it is a revered "classic".While I am sure More's intent might have been good, and his ideas even acceptable during his time, the main problem with his theory is the lack of freedom allotted to the individuals in his utopia.This sort of thing just does not fly these days.

It's a book
I needed Utopia for a class, so whether or not I enjoyed it is pretty much irrelevant. I doubt this book is being read for personal enjoyment, but it wasn't a bad read.

Literary Garden of Eden
This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities.A great story and important historical work in literature.History of Utopia begins with Thomas Moore's book in 1516 he coins the phrase Utopia.Ideal societies have been around before like Garden of Eden, city on a hill.For Moore the idea of utopia was intended to be an ironic one.One of the problems you are faced with when reading his utopia is that you cannot really tell when he is serious and when he is being satirical.He writes on the border of the lyrical and satirical, you cannot really tell when he is trying to be funny or serious.The other problem is the Thomas Moore who speaks to us in the story is not the Thomas Moore who actually lived.He wrote himself into a character.He is intending it to be ironic.Utopia is Greek for "Good Place, and "no place."He is punning an ironic two-sided term he clearly intended irony when he wrote this text, which provided the foundation for a new genre for social representation.Now, according to Lewis Mumford, who wrote the book "The Story of Utopia" 1922, one of the first comprehensive studies of Utopian representation in Western Civilization, the word Utopia signifies human folly or human hope, the vain hope of perfection.The vain hope of remaking our own imperfect natures, so that we can establish the blissful harmonious communal life.On one hand, he is entirely playful and paradoxical.Thomas Moore could be bigoted (against Protestants), small minded, not a saint as portrayed.Among all the things, he was a great wit, great sense of humor.On the other hand, it seems that Utopia could be a reflection of his devout Catholicism.He has been represented as a Roman Catholic martyr.In which case you want to take him seriously, altering the model of menses a set of new aims for moral and social objectives.Of course, Moore's death is important to consider in this life he is glorified in the film, "A Man for All Seasons."He was a Renaissance man, he was a lawyer, statesman, Christian humanist a classical scholar an advocate for women's rights he was also Henry 8's Lord Chancellor.

In 1514, he was sent to Flanders to negotiate a wool treaty and while there, he meets and befriends Peter Giles who is the town clerk of Antwerp, and allegedly tells him "It is my intention to write a book about the way a country should be governed according to my principals.But, it is dangerous to write about those things in England while king Henry the 8 wrath is so easily encouraged, I could perhaps write that I met an old sailor in your house and introduce that man as a globetrotter, who had traveled all over the world and had seen places that we don't even know the existence of.What he had seen there was so unbelievable as compared to the life in Europe that the islands the countries he had visited would seem to belong to another world.Therefore, the title of my book will be "Utopia" a word that means "no where."That sailor will have traveled all over Europe and lived sometime in France Germany, and England.That is why he could compare the ideal community he got acquainted with in Utopia, to the ones he got to know in our countries, and that way I would keep myself out of the matter."After he returned to London, he wrote the fist chapter.Now, what would that tell us about the Utopian imagination, the creation the public presentation of a Utopia?Moore was beheaded in 1535; he would not recognize marriage to Ann Boleyn as lawful to the church.In 1534, Henry becomes head of the church, but Moore remains loyal to pope.In 1935, Moore is canonized.We have to take Moore's religion very seriously.Moore thought Protestants should be burned, he was greedy and proud, not a perfect man.Yet he had this wish for a Utopia.

All utopian fictional ideas ofmythic proportion occupy kind of distant realm of the afterlife, myth, faith that unite all of these elements in a matter that is so rich and potentially illuminating and invaluable for scholars students that are interested in working across boundaries and in understanding and exploring the value of working across boundaries.Societies woven and inhabited by populations some of them very select, the exceptionally virtuous or blessed in some cases getting there requires a metaphysical transformation, in other cases it requires a harrowing journey that has to be understood as some ways metaphorical and some ways literal.There is always a sense that to reach Utopia requires a transformation of the human self how do we get away from our flaws, how do we get away from our seemingly inevitable and invariable nature of our being.

These places offer anecdotes to painful and tragic realities to human existence.They are historical in nature you cannot understand any utopia, whether it is represented in a sci-fi movie, or novel or feminist utopia; they must be placed in some kind of a historical context.A fascinating proposition to explore, all utopias all acts of the utopian imagination strike us as constituting in one manner or another statements, critiques or observations about the world we occupy at that given moment.Therefore, any utopia is a reflection and study of the world that we are occupying at that given moment and what we wish it were rather than what it is at that moment.Therefore, utopia is a deeply and inescapably a historical manner organizing the human imagination.I don't think any utopia works in a fixed and eternal way because for every generation and every age they have to imagine their own utopia.Of course utopian experiments were not just talking about fiction or wishing it were so, were talking about actual Soviet Revolution of 1917, were looking at movements looking to bring about radical profound social and political changes that are so deeply utopian in nature.So utopians are aesthetic, philosophical, sociological, they are imagined and fictional, but you can look a history and find attempts most of which failed to bring about these kind of communities that Emerson, Thoreau, these 19th century American egalitarian attempts to create the ideal agrarian society.1960 hippies reawakening movement of going back to the natural and living off the land.Even today's green and ecological revolution you find in them utopian aspects that resonate so richly with the history of envisioning the ideal society, an ideal place.

Oscar Wilde once said "A map of the world that does not include Utopia, is not even worth glancing at for it leaves out the one country at which humanity has always landed, and when humanity lands there it looks out sees a better country set sail.Progress is the realization of utopias."So when we talk about utopias we are not only talking about a desire or a wish or a longing for perfection, we are talking about an order of progress, a way in which we intend to advance, a way in which we envision or imagine improvement and progress.A progress narrative, psychoanalysis is utopian.Freud's theory of psychoanalysis is a scientific expression of the utopian imagination.The idea that where id was, the ego shall be.The idea of a talking story, the idea that we can master our neurosis that we can harness them that we can move from unconscious behavior to conscious behavior.Marxism and all the grand philosophies of the 19th and 20th centuries are grand utopian narratives.Feminism is a grand utopian narrative in and of itself.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in history, psychology, philosophy, and literature.

Very Satisfied with Product
I was happy to receive my book in great condition. The process was easy and shipping took but a short time. I was very pleased.

Utopia: Not As Free As You Might Think
When Thomas More wrote UTOPIA in 1516, he attempted to postulate how human beings could create a society that would be as nearly perfect as possible.At least that is what is commonly believed that he tried to do.For those who have read his book, they immediately see some troubling issues.The first sticky point is to define what he meant by the term "utopia." Did he mean a totally democratic state; such as the ancient Greeks had, in which each citizen had direct voting in all issues? Or perhaps More was simply updating Plato, who saw his Republic as a society governed by a carefully selected breed of rulers who would rule an equally carefully selected brood of subjects? Or again, was More attempting to strike an impossible balance between the burgeoning rise of Renaissance humanism with a stifling set of conflicting Christian religions?It is too easy for moderns to suggest that he was merely holding up Utopia as a fun-house type mirror by which he wished his contemporaries could see themselves reflected as zigzag images and perhaps be ashamed enough--or exhorted enough--to alter their behavior for the better.We today are tempted to judge his meaning by 20th century standards, which do not always draw a clear distinction among the virtues that More's Renaissance contemporaries took for granted but today we dismiss as outdated, or worse, irrelevant.

The book itself has two parts. The first includes More, who places himself in the book as a traveler to Antwerp who meets Peter Giles, who in turn introduces him to Raphael Hythloday, a name that Moore punningly notes that in Greek means "nonsense speaker." Hythloday mentions that he journeyed with Amerigo Vespucci to America and along the way encountered the mythical land of Utopia.This first part is slow reading in that More does little more than discuss some general reforms of potential benefit to England, most of which involved agrarian, economic, judicial, military, and criminal justice matters, all of which obliquely suggest that what worked in Utopia might work in England as well.It is the second part that has generated considerable controversy as to what More really meant his readers to grasp.

For those who come to the second part of UTOPIA and expect a 16th century version of Eden, the results are profoundly shocking.When More details the basic government setup as one in which its citizens are living in a ruthless police state with the death penalty meted out for a variety of reasons, readers suddenly grasp that Utopia may not be all that different from Plato, who similarly envisioned his society as one free from the degenerating influences of poetry and the basic tenets of free speech.When this sobering concept sinks in, then the term "utopia" begins to lose its cache as a synonym for a land of unrivalled happiness. But if these readers look at Utopia through the eyes of More and not their own, then a different Utopia arises.As an educated classicist fully versed in traditional Christian orthodoxy, More was trained to evaluate any social structure according to the non-Christian but humanistic Cardinal Virtues of wisdom, fortitude, temperance, and justice, and then compare these to the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity. More made it clear that both sets of virtues were needed to make Utopia an enduring entity.More was not optimistic enough to truly believe the social inequities in England (or Utopia for that matter) could be so easily eliminated merely by rearranging the pieces of the social pie. What humans of any society needed to ensure genuine freedom from tyranny was mastery of the far more unmanageable Seven Deadly Sins.Of these More suggests that by downplaying the importance of gold, by limiting the nature and amount of material wealth, and by forcing all citizens from the highest to lowest to share in all types of drudgery, that the worst of the sins, Pride, will be vanquished, thus leaving Utopia as ready to endure in the face of what to other and less advanced societies would be tantalizing but deadly temptations.

What emerges then in Utopia is a mythical land based on equally mythical virtues that can house a citizenry such as never existed in human history nor is likely to.But More felt that even if his contemporaries managed to alter for the better their profligate ways, then a small sliver of Utopia might result.For More and perhaps for us today, that might be good enough.

... Read more

Book Description
Thomas More's Utopia is one of the supreme achievements of Renaissance humanism.This is the first edition since 1965 to combine More's Latin text with an English translation, and the first to provide an accurate Latin text.Spelling and punctuation have been regularized, and the translation is a revised version of the acclaimed Adams translation, also published in Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought.The edition includes an introduction, textual apparatus, a full commentary and a guide to the critical literature on Utopia. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Literary Garden of Eden
This was required reading for a graduate course in the Humanities.A great story and important historical work in literature.History of Utopia begins with Thomas Moore's book in 1516 he coins the phrase Utopia.Ideal societies have been around before like Garden of Eden, city on a hill.For Moore the idea of utopia was intended to be an ironic one.One of the problems you are faced with when reading his utopia is that you cannot really tell when he is serious and when he is being satirical.He writes on the border of the lyrical and satirical, you cannot really tell when he is trying to be funny or serious.The other problem is the Thomas Moore who speaks to us in the story is not the Thomas Moore who actually lived.He wrote himself into a character.He is intending it to be ironic.Utopia is Greek for "Good Place, and "no place."He is punning an ironic two-sided term he clearly intended irony when he wrote this text, which provided the foundation for a new genre for social representation.Now, according to Lewis Mumford, who wrote the book "The Story of Utopia" 1922, one of the first comprehensive studies of Utopian representation in Western Civilization, the word Utopia signifies human folly or human hope, the vain hope of perfection.The vain hope of remaking our own imperfect natures, so that we can establish the blissful harmonious communal life.On one hand, he is entirely playful and paradoxical.Thomas Moore could be bigoted (against Protestants), small minded, not a saint as portrayed.Among all the things, he was a great wit, great sense of humor.On the other hand, it seems that Utopia could be a reflection of his devout Catholicism.He has been represented as a Roman Catholic martyr.In which case you want to take him seriously, altering the model of menses a set of new aims for moral and social objectives.Of course, Moore's death is important to consider in this life he is glorified in the film, "A Man for All Seasons."He was a Renaissance man, he was a lawyer, statesman, Christian humanist a classical scholar an advocate for women's rights he was also Henry 8's Lord Chancellor.

In 1514, he was sent to Flanders to negotiate a wool treaty and while there, he meets and befriends Peter Giles who is the town clerk of Antwerp, and allegedly tells him "It is my intention to write a book about the way a country should be governed according to my principals.But, it is dangerous to write about those things in England while king Henry the 8 wrath is so easily encouraged, I could perhaps write that I met an old sailor in your house and introduce that man as a globetrotter, who had traveled all over the world and had seen places that we don't even know the existence of.What he had seen there was so unbelievable as compared to the life in Europe that the islands the countries he had visited would seem to belong to another world.Therefore, the title of my book will be "Utopia" a word that means "no where."That sailor will have traveled all over Europe and lived sometime in France Germany, and England.That is why he could compare the ideal community he got acquainted with in Utopia, to the ones he got to know in our countries, and that way I would keep myself out of the matter."After he returned to London, he wrote the fist chapter.Now, what would that tell us about the Utopian imagination, the creation the public presentation of a Utopia?Moore was beheaded in 1535; he would not recognize marriage to Ann Boleyn as lawful to the church.In 1534, Henry becomes head of the church, but Moore remains loyal to pope.In 1935, Moore is canonized.We have to take Moore's religion very seriously.Moore thought Protestants should be burned, he was greedy and proud, not a perfect man.Yet he had this wish for a Utopia.

All utopian fictional ideas ofmythic proportion occupy kind of distant realm of the afterlife, myth, faith that unite all of these elements in a matter that is so rich and potentially illuminating and invaluable for scholars students that are interested in working across boundaries and in understanding and exploring the value of working across boundaries.Societies woven and inhabited by populations some of them very select, the exceptionally virtuous or blessed in some cases getting there requires a metaphysical transformation, in other cases it requires a harrowing journey that has to be understood as some ways metaphorical and some ways literal.There is always a sense that to reach Utopia requires a transformation of the human self how do we get away from our flaws, how do we get away from our seemingly inevitable and invariable nature of our being.

These places offer anecdotes to painful and tragic realities to human existence.They are historical in nature you cannot understand any utopia, whether it is represented in a sci-fi movie, or novel or feminist utopia; they must be placed in some kind of a historical context.A fascinating proposition to explore, all utopias all acts of the utopian imagination strike us as constituting in one manner or another statements, critiques or observations about the world we occupy at that given moment.Therefore, any utopia is a reflection and study of the world that we are occupying at that given moment and what we wish it were rather than what it is at that moment.Therefore, utopia is a deeply and inescapably a historical manner organizing the human imagination.I don't think any utopia works in a fixed and eternal way because for every generation and every age they have to imagine their own utopia.Of course utopian experiments were not just talking about fiction or wishing it were so, were talking about actual Soviet Revolution of 1917, were looking at movements looking to bring about radical profound social and political changes that are so deeply utopian in nature.So utopians are aesthetic, philosophical, sociological, they are imagined and fictional, but you can look a history and find attempts most of which failed to bring about these kind of communities that Emerson, Thoreau, these 19th century American egalitarian attempts to create the ideal agrarian society.1960 hippies reawakening movement of going back to the natural and living off the land.Even today's green and ecological revolution you find in them utopian aspects that resonate so richly with the history of envisioning the ideal society, an ideal place.

Oscar Wilde once said "A map of the world that does not include Utopia, is not even worth glancing at for it leaves out the one country at which humanity has always landed, and when humanity lands there it looks out sees a better country set sail.Progress is the realization of utopias."So when we talk about utopias we are not only talking about a desire or a wish or a longing for perfection, we are talking about an order of progress, a way in which we intend to advance, a way in which we envision or imagine improvement and progress.A progress narrative, psychoanalysis is utopian.Freud's theory of psychoanalysis is a scientific expression of the utopian imagination.The idea that where id was, the ego shall be.The idea of a talking story, the idea that we can master our neurosis that we can harness them that we can move from unconscious behavior to conscious behavior.Marxism and all the grand philosophies of the 19th and 20th centuries are grand utopian narratives.Feminism is a grand utopian narrative in and of itself.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in history, psychology, philosophy, and literature.

A More perfect plan...
Thomas More, executed by Henry VIII (one of his best friends) for treason, led an illustrious career of politics and letters. Under his friend the King, he served in many capacities - Speaker of the House of Commons, Master of Requests, Privy Councillor, etc. - culminating with the trust of the position of Lord Chancellor, a position in those days matching the prominence (if not the definition) of Prime Minister in these days. More's strong integrity and resolute mind caught the attention of scholars, political and church leaders internationally; it was this same integrity that most likely was his undoing, refusing to assent to the King's divorce and severance of ties binding the English Church with the Roman overlordship of the Pope. Indeed, More was, if not the actual ghostwriter, then certainly an inspiration and editorial aide to the document produced by King Henry VIII against the continental protestants, earning for Henry (and his heirs ever after) the title of Defender of the Faith (historical irony is that this title, most likely not intended to be hereditary, now declares the defense of a faith separated from the one for which the title was bestowed).

While an Ambassador to Flanders, More spent spare time writing this book, 'Utopia'. The very title is a still a by-word in the English language (as well as others) of a state of bliss and peace; it is often used with the context of being unrealistic. 'Utopia' is More's response to and development from Plato's 'Republic', in that it is a framework for a perfect society, or at least perfect according to More's ideas of the time. Penned originally in Latin, 'Utopia' has been translated widely; one of the better translations is by H.V.S. Ogden, in 1949, still reprinted in various editions to this day. Originally published in Latin in 1516, the first English version appeared in 1551, some 16 years after More's death.

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Utopia
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Thomas More writes this as if he were traveling, and meets his friend Peter Giles, who introduces him to Raphael Hythloday, a scholar/traveler with tales to tell.

Hythloday made friends with a prince who outfitted him for a journey. He traveled through deserts and fertile lands. He proceeds to give an account to Giles and More. In an ironic twist, given More's own attachment to Henry VIII, Hythloday states that he doesn't give his information in advice of kings or princes, for to be beholden to them is not a wise thing. He quotes Plato, in saying that unless kings were themselves philosophers, they should never appreciate philosophers.

More argues for public service, which Hythloday rejects as something that other place-seekers will use to bolster their own positions. Then Hythloday makes the startling pronouncement with regard to how a society should be constituted: 'As long as there is property, and while money is the standard of all things, I cannot think that a nation can be governed either justly or happily; not justly, because the best things will fall to the share of the worst men; nor happily, because all things will be divided among a few (and even these are not in all respects happy), the rest being left to the absolutely miserable.'

Hythloday proceeds to give an account of the life of Utopia, where, he says, there are so few laws and so much liberty and equality that virtue is always rewarded, and each person has what he or she needs. He talks about this under the following headings:

Of Their Towns, Particularly of Amaurot
Of Their Magistrates
Of Their Trades, and Manner of Life
Of Their Traffic
Of the Travelling of the Utopians
Of Their Slaves, and of Their Marriages
Of Their Military Discipline
Of the Religions of the Utopians

'Utopia' is a radical document. It anticipates the modern idea of communism, with private property at a minimum; it is generations ahead in the idea of equality of the sexes and freedom of religion. This may seem a remarkable statement from someone who will go to his death supporting the Roman hierarchy, but in historical irony, had religious freedom been respected in England at the time, More would have had nothing to fear.

'Utopia' was a place of education and free inquiry. Again, More's own life models this - travelers from as far away as Constantinople and Venice, visiting More's home in Chelsea, remarked on the incredible sense of knowledge and respect for reason and learning, not just for the men, but also for the women of the household (More's own daughter once impressed Henry VIII with her Latin training so much he was at pains to find something at which he excelled that he could best her at).

At different points throughout the text, More (speaking through Hythloday) jabs in witty and insightful manner the habits of the day - that kings are often more concerned to fill their own coffers than increasing the general wealth of the nation; that courts are designed to be self-serving and self-perpetuating; that liberties are curtailed not for just and reasonable causes, but often for petty personal reasons.

Some of the ideas, however, are not as modern or enlightened as they might seem at first glance. Utopians' freedom of religion exists only in very narrow bounds of reason - they are all monotheists, and while they might identify this deity with the sun or moon or a good person who died long ago, they are not permitted to speak or attempt to convert others to this idea, without risking bondage or death. Not too Utopian after all...

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More was beatified by Leo XIII in 1886 and canonised by Pius XI in 1935 (it is significant to note that Anglican-Roman relations were at a strained point during these times, and the raising of an English saint who rejected the Anglican construct served at least minor political points, something More would have been able to appreciate, if not approve). The official feast day is July 9.
... Read more

Book Description
This Source Book brings together classic texts by and about Thomas More—poet, scholar, statesman, family man, educational reformer, philosopher, historian, and saint. In addition to serving as an introduction to More's life and writings for the general reader, this collection is a helpful companion to the study of More's literary and philosophical masterwork, Utopia, and to the study of sixteenth-century history, literature, philosophy, or politics. The writings focus upon More's views of education, political theory, church-state relations, love and friendship, practical politics, and the vexing issues of conscience. They shed light on the distinctive Christian humanism that More expressed and embodied. Also included in this book are three famous sixteenth-century accounts of More's life by Erasmus, Roper, and a team of London playwrights including William Shakespeare. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Thomas More Source Book
Although some scholars purchase this book as part of the class and lecture series on Thomas More, I bought it to console myself since I could not attend a class.
I was impressed by Thomas More's clarity of thought and ability to decide "the right thing to do" at each turn in his life. Clearly, many of his contemporaries admired him for this characteristic of his as well, as their contributions to this book show. I enjoyed the thought-provoking depth which Thomas More shares through his own writing.

Great addition to Renaissance studies!
What a great contribution these authors have made to the world of Renaissance and Thomas More studies! This comprehensive anthology provides a wealth of primary sources as well as related materials on Thomas More and his world. Due to the multi-faceted character of its subject, this book will be of interest to historians, biographers, educators, theologians, writers, politicians, and many others as well. The "Man for All Seasons" was a lawyer, judge, husband and father, scholar, counselor to the king, and martyr, and this rich source book provides the background to the inner man. The authors begin with contemporary biographies and sketches of More, then explore samples ofhis own works. Selections from his early poems and letters are followed by some of his writings on education (he was a trend-setter in promoting education of women), government, and religion. The closing section, "More's Last Days", includes samples of his letters, various accounts of his trial, and the Paris Newsletter report on his execution.

This book provides a solid foundation for More studies and would serve as an excellent college text. Following an informative Introduction, a treasury of More-related material is provided. Even the Elizabethan play "Munday and Shakespeare's 'Sir Thomas More'" is provided in its entirety. Explanatory introductions are given to all selections, and clear glosses enrich the text throughout the book. Perhaps the only thing one might miss here is More's most famous work, "Utopia", but for study at this level, it certainly deserves to be treated separately, in its entirety.

This handsome and convenient text is further enriched by a lovely collection of portraits and other related artworks, even reproductions of pages from More's prayer book (showing his own hand-written additions). Helpful material at the end of the book includes several chronologies, some original well-annotated maps, and a very thorough Index. These tools should prove most useful to More scholars.

In sum, I feel that this book provides a wonderful tool for those who explore the world of Renaissance England and the person of Thomas More. We can only be grateful that Professors Wegemer and Smith foresaw the need for this book and did such a fine job in producing it. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Uneven
(I wrote a review of this back in early April, but for whatever reason it has not been posted here.So I'll resubmit it.)

"Sir Thomas More" is a play originally written by Anthony Munday about 1594, but it failed to pass the censors; accordingly, in c. 1600-02 the play was reworked, and some scenes occasionally rewritten, by Thomas Heywood, Henry Chettle, Thomas Dekker, and William Shakespeare.It is for Shakespeare's involvement in this play, consisting of no more than one scene and a short soliloquy, that "Sir Thomas More" is really remembered at all.

The first two acts of the play are, as a whole, strong and dramatically effective.As the play opens long-simmering resentment of native-born Londoners against foreign French "straungers" living in the town is boiling over, and the mounting tension leading up to rebellion is well-executed, leading up to the climactic "Ill May Day" scene, written by Shakespeare, in which all the tension is diffused by More's pacificating address to the rebels (and Shakespeare's passionate plea for the common humanity of the "straungers," reminiscent of Shylock's "Hath not a Jew").The rabble-rousing revolutionary John Lincoln cuts an attractive figure, despite his xenophobia, and Doll Williamson is a feisty and entertaining character that a modern actress could have great fun with.

After Lincoln's execution at the beginning of Act 3, the play loses its dramatic thrust and goes all over the place in search of a plot, in a hit and miss fashion.The most noteworthy scenes of the latter half of the play are the episode of Jack Faulkner and his "shag hair," Lady More's graphic and poignant dream of the "whirlpool," and when More speaks "like Moore in melancholy."

"Sir Thomas More" is not a masterpiece, but it's worth reading and probably ought to start being printed complete in collections of Shakespeare's work.In every collection I know of, Shakespeare's "Ill May Day" scene is printed alone, but I never fully appreciated it until I read it in its context in "Sir Thomas More": there is great tension in that scene, which Shakespeare masterfully diffuses with humanity and the voice of sanity, but that tension can only be appreciated if you read the non-Shakespearean scenes which came before it and set it all up. ... Read more