The History of the Sevarambians: A Utopian Novel

by Denis Veiras, John Christian Laursen (Editor), Cyrus Masroori (Editor)

Reminiscent of More's Utopia and Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Denis Veiras's History of the Sevarambians is one of the great utopian novels of the seventeenth century. Set in Australia, this rollicking adventure story comes complete with a shipwreck, romantic tales, religious fraud, magical talismans, and supernatural animals. The current volume contains two versions of Veiras's the original English and the 1738 English translation of the expanded French version. Veiras's work was well known in its own time and has been translated into a number of languages, including German, French, Russian, and Japanese, while the English version has been largely forgotten. The book has been read to teach a variety of political doctrines, and also has been cited as an early development in the history of ideas about religious toleration. It reveals a great deal about early modern English, Dutch, and French attitudes toward other cultures. One of the first utopian writings to qualify as a novel, it can be interpreted as a metaphor for human life, in all its complexity and ambiguity.

418 pages, Hardcover

First published May 4, 2006

Reviews

[Wreade1872 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was still undecided whether to give this 2 or 3 stars, but then near the end i hit the language section. With 20-30 pages of grammar lessons and thought nope 2 it is :) .

So this so is one of those descriptions of a utopia, there isn't much in the way of story, its just a frame for the details of the geography, politics, education, language, religion, history etc of this fictional place.

Its divided into 5 sections, the first is a description of the authors life and a shipwreck which strands 300 men and 72 women on some unknown island.
If your worried that the women arn't going to fair well in that kind of situation... you would be right.
So as to be classist aswell as sexist, the officers each take one and the rest are divided amongst the men about 5 women to each man... ugh.
But don't worry in section 2 they find a utopian society, who are shocked and appalled at the treatment of the women.
Because they're polygamists and feel multiple men to one women is very wrong, it should be multiple women to one man. Again its also classist as the number of wives you can have is determined by your rank, they're an employment bonus like a company car... ugh.
Until all the men can find wives they are given sex slaves instead which are apparently kept around for the use of travelers.
Don't worry though the men have to undergo a medical check for syphilis first, no i'm not kidding they actually did that, yay?

I could make this review really long but it would just be a recitation of everything in here. It is kind of fascinating because there are so many contradictions but overall its still pretty boring.

So i'll simply give a short list of the good and bad points of the supposed utopia on show here, note super big spoilers:
Good:
Equal education for men and women, semi-equality of employment, 8 hour workday, no poor, no capital punishment, equal male female army, semi-democratic elections, religious liberty, no hereditary jobs.
Bad:
Neighbouring tribes have to give tributes of children to be used as slaves, no private property, censorship, most female soldiers under 18, eugenics with anyone seen as physically or mentally damaged sent to one particular province, children taken and educated (indoctrinated) by the state from age 7, no females in positions of authority, blood sports, corporal punishment, spies sent to foreign lands but only if they have at least 3 children to be used as leverage for their return, all people must get married by 18 or 21 for women and men respectively, if a women can't find a man she must marry one of the high officials who has an open slot in his wife tally, the supreme leader gets first dibs on any pretty women.

[Jelani · Rating 2 out of 5]

The History of The Sevarambians: A Utopian Novel by Denis Vieras follows the journey of the people on a shipwreck on an island and the events that follow. This novel explores the topics such as politics, religion, and the history of the people that have inhabited the island. The main character of this novel’s name was never revealed throughout this book. The events are mostly from his perspective and experience. The strength of having this character as the narrator is how descriptive he was and how he was able to explain what he experienced throughout his journey “Here I saw a great Saphire-stone, about the bigness of a Goose, in which the Heavens and the Earth were represented very lively to the eye” (Veiras 94). The words he uses to describe what he sees paints an image that is helpful to the reader which I appreciate. However, the main character falls short of the reader knowing little to nothing about him. He is presented as a third person rather than the typical first-person narrator. The setting of the story plays a major role in what the main character experiences in The History of The Sevarambians. “I have before observ’d, that we had order’d in the Camp, that one woman should, in common, serve five Men” (Verias 163). This was something new that the main character experienced when they ended up on the island. Due to this setting and rules that the people on the island created, he had a woman who served him. I didn’t find this book to be enjoyable. One of the reasons is its style of writing. The way this novel was written was jarring and was difficult for me to know what was going on certain times. Granted that this isn’t a style of writing I’m used to because this was written in the 17th century in France. I feel that people with more experience with this writing style would enjoy the book more than I did. Another reason is that I just found the novel to be boring. It didn’t grab the attention that I hoped it would be the title. It had interesting moments at certain parts, but it wasn’t interesting enough to keep me entertained while reading. I was fortunate enough to have unlimited access to this novel by Valencia College library. You could get the novel on Amazon Kindle at the price being $28.49. You could also purchase the book at AbeBooks, the new copies being from $70 and the used being from $10.45.