How was Thomas More's Utopia first translated and received, according to Cathy Shrank?

Cathy Shrank says the only translation in More's lifetime was German, in 1524, and it carried Book Two alone. The first complete translation was Italian in 1548, and the first English one came in 1551 from Robinson, a London goldsmith. Joanne Paul notes that two English editions, under Protestant Edward VI and Catholic Mary I, cut the book loose from More and played up the travel tale.

• French and Dutch versions followed in the 1550s, and a Spanish manuscript translation from before 1535 never reached print.
• Thomas Smith dismissed Utopia as a philosophers' fantasy in 1564 but held up Ireland as another utopia to win colonists.

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on In Our Time (2026-10-15). Read the whole episode summary →

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