In constructing an imaginary world, Huxley contributes to a long tradition — the utopian fiction. "Utopia," from the Greek words for "no place" and "good place," first came into English in Sir Thomas More's work Utopia (1516), a fictional account of a far away nation whose characteristics invite comparison with More's England. More used his fictional Utopia to point out the problems present in his own society. Since then, writers have created utopias to challenge readers to think about the underlying assumptions of their own culture. Gulliver's Travels (1726), by Jonathan Swift, seems at first to be a book of outlandish travel stories. Yet throughout the narratives, Swift employs his fictional worlds ironically to make serious arguments about the injustices of his own Britain. In utopian fiction, imagination becomes a way to explore alternatives in political, social, and religious life.
In Huxley's time, the most popular writer of utopian fiction was H.G. Wells, author of The Time Machine (1895), The War of the Worlds (1898), A Modern Utopia (1905), and many other novels. Wells held an optimistic view of the future, with an internationalist perspective, and so his utopias reflected the end of national divisions and the growth of a truly humane civilization, as he saw it. When Huxley read Wells' Men Like Gods, he was inspired to make fun of its optimism with his characteristically ironic wit. What began as a parody turned into a novel of its own — Brave New World.
