Halting but intimate confidences : sexuality and romance in utopian literature

While sexuality and romance have played a significant role in many late nineteenth-and early twentieth century utopian novels, these aspects have often escaped scholarly attention. This thesis examines the deployment of (a)sexuality in The Great Romance by The Inhabitant (1881), Looking Backward: 2000-1887 by Edward Bellamy (1888), News from Nowhere by William Morris (1890), A Modern Utopia by H. G. Wells (1905) and Her/and by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915). By drawing upon feminist conceptions of utopia offered by Gayle Rubin, Jennifer Burwell and Anne Fausto Sterling, this thesis reveals the complex theories of gender and sexuality articulated within these early utopian texts. As issues such as jealousy and sexual violence are confronted within utopia, ideas about the socially constructed nature of sexuality emerg