This is an academic essay of 6,000+ words with ten secondary scholarly references. This essay examines the presentation of women and marriage in Sarah Scott’s 1762 utopian fiction 'Millenium Hall and the Country Adjacent' with some reference to 'The History of Sir George Ellison', published in 1766 and regarded as a sort of sequel to the first novel. Scott’s work has attracted little critical interest since the late eighteenth century, but in the last two decades has been scrutinized and analyzed by feminist critics, whose views are reflected in the paper throughout. The second half of the essay reflects the trends in modern criticism of the novel by exploring the problems and inconsistencies within the novel itself in relation to critical viewpoints which suggest that it embodies an essentially conservative and nostalgic view of human society and which lessen and diminish its supposed radicalism.
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