A Description of the Famous Kingdome of Macaria is a work of utopian fiction, published in England in 1641. It carried the name of Samuel Hartlib, who published it, but is now attributed to Gabriel Plattes. A short text of fifteen pages, it reads, according to Amy Boesky, like a political address, and it was explicitly framed as an address to Parliament.[1]
It is written as a dialogue, and is in the tradition of the Utopia of Thomas More — Macaria is an island mentioned in Utopia — and the New Atlantis of Francis Bacon.[2] Hugh Trevor-Roper takes it to be an important formulation of the ultimate political ambitions of Hartlib and his followers (and in particular John Dury), in the form of a reformed Christian society and welfare state. It covers the issues of economic development, taxation and education.[3] Much of the content drew on Henry Robinson's Englands Safety from earlier in the same year.[4]