A. Primary Sources

Most citations are to The Essential Works of Thomas More [EW], which is cross-referenced to the fifteen volumes of The Complete Works of St. Thomas More [CW].

More’s execution discouraged publication of his work; in the Catholic interim under Mary I, however, his nephew William Rastell edited the vernacular writings, The Works of Sir Thomas More in the Englysh tonge, London, 1557 (reprinted with an introduction by K. J. Wilson, Menston: Scolar Press, 1978). His Latin works, Opera omnia, were printed at Louvain in 1565 and 1566, and at Frankfurt in 1689. Except for his complete correspondence, More’s extant works are now available in the Yale edition, which provides authoritative texts with comprehensive introductory material and annotation. Many of More’s letters were edited by Elizabeth F. Rogers in 1947, but she did not include his exchanges with Erasmus; for these the reader must consult Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, ed. P.S. Allen et al., 12 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906–58, or the correspondence volumes in the Toronto Collected Works of Erasmus. Rogers published in 1960 (revised in 1967) More’s Selected Letters—all these and fifty others by More are in EW. A critical edition of More’s correspondence (some 280 letters) was planned for Yale University’s Complete Works, but has not yet been completed.

Abbreviated citations used in the entry are given below.

• [CW] The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, 15 vols., New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press, 1963–97:
  • Volume 1: English Poems, Life of Pico, The Last Things. Edited by Anthony S.G. Edwards, Clarence H. Miller and Katherine Gardiner Rodgers. 1997. (Scholar)
  • Volume 2: The History of King Richard III. Edited by R.S. Sylvester. 1963.
  • Volume 3, Part 1: Translations of Lucian. Edited by Craig R. Thompson. 1974.
  • Volume 3, Part 2: Latin Poems. Edited by Clarence H. Miller, Leicester Bradner, Charles A. Lynch and Revilo P. Oliver. 1984.
  • Volume 4: Utopia. Edited by Edward Surtz, S.J., and J.H. Hexter. 1965.
  • Volume 5: Responsio ad Lutherum. Edited by John Headley. 1969. Selections from this are available online: A Response to Luther, Book 1 (pdf) and A Response to Luther, Book 2 (pdf)
  • Volume 6: Parts I & II, A Dialogue Concerning Heresies. Edited by Thomas M.C. Lawler, G. Marc’hadour and R.C. Marius. 1981.
  • Volume 7: Letter to Bugenhagen, Supplication of Souls, Letter against Frith. Edited by Frank Manley, Clarence H. Miller, and R.C. Marius. 1990.
  • Volume 8, Parts I–III: The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer. Edited by Louis A. Schuster, R.C. Marius, and James P. Lusardi. 1973. A selection from this is available online: The Confutations of Tyndale’s Answer: Books 5–9 (pdf) (Scholar)
  • Volume 9: The Apology. Edited by J.B. Trapp. 1979.
  • Volume 10: The Debellation of Salem and Bizance. Edited by John Guy, Clarence H. Miller, and Ralph Keen. 1988. A selection from this is available online: The Debellation of Salem and Bizance (pdf)
  • Volume 11: The Answer to a Poisoned Book. Edited by Clarence H. Miller and Stephen M. Foley. 1985.
  • Volume 12: A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation. Edited by Louis L. Martz and Frank Manley. 1976.
  • Volume 13: Treatise on the Passion, Treatise on the Blessed Body, Instructions and Prayers. Edited by Garry E. Haupt. 1976.
  • Volume 14: De tristitia Christi. Edited by Clarence H. Miller. 1976.
  • Volume 15: In Defense of Humanism: Letters to Dorp, Oxford, Lee, and a Monk; Historia Richardi Tertii. Edited by Daniel Kinney. 1986.
• [Corr.] The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More. Edited by E. F. Rogers, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1947; contains or lists 218 of More’s 280 letters. (Scholar)
• [EW] The Essential Works of Thomas More. Edited by Gerard B. Wegemer and Stephen W. Smith. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020; contains 20 of More’s books in full, 106 of his letters in English, and his 291 poems. doi:10.12987/9780300249415 (Scholar)
• [SL] St. Thomas More: Selected Letters. Edited by E.F. Rogers, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1961, 1967 (revised edition); contains 66 letters, including English translations of the Latin letters.
• [CWE] Collected Works of Erasmus, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974–.

B. Selected Editions of More’s Works

• The History of King Richard the Third. Edited by George M. Logan, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2005.
• Sir Thomas More: Neue Briefe. Edited by Hubertus Schulte Herbrüggen, Münster: Aschendorff, 1966. 22 letters, most not contained in Rogers’ 1947 Correspondence, some newly discovered.
• The Last Letters of Thomas More. Edited by Alvaro de Silva, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000.
• L’Utopie de Thomas More. Edited by André Prevost, Paris: Mame, 1978. Latin and French texts, with extensive commentary. (Scholar)
• Utopia: Latin Text and English Translation. Edited by George M. Logan, Robert M. Adams, and Clarence Miller, Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Cited here as the most reliable bilingual text in print. (Scholar)
• Utopia. Translation and introduction by Dominic Baker-Smith, London: Penguin Books, 2012.

C. Contemporary Biographies

• Erasmus, Desiderius, Letters 999, 1233, 2750 in EW 1369-1380 and CWE volumes 7, 8, 19.
• Harpsfield, Nicholas, The Life of and Death of Sir Thomas More (c. 1559). Edited by E.V. Hitchcock, London: Oxford University Press, 1932. (Scholar)
• More, Cresacre, The Life and Death of Sir Thomas More (c. 1631). Edited by J. Hunter, London: William Pickering, 1828. (Scholar)
• Pace, Richard, De fructu qui ex doctrina percipitur (The Benefit of a Liberal Education) (1517). Edited by Frank Manley and Richard S. Sylvester, New York: Frederick Unger Publishing, 1967. (Scholar)
• Roper, William, The Lyfe of Sir Thomas More (c. 1557). Edited by E.V. Hitchcock, London: Oxford University Press, 1935. (Scholar)
• Stapleton, Thomas, The Life of Sir Thomas More (Part 3 of Tres Thomae, 1588). Translated by Philip E. Hallett, London: Burns Oates and Washbourne, 1928. (Scholar)

D. Biographical Studies

• Ackroyd, Peter, 1998, The Life of Thomas More, London: Chatto and Windus. (Scholar)
• Baker House, Seymour, 2008, “More, Sir Thomas (1478–1535)”, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Scholar)
• Chambers, R. W., 1935, Thomas More, London: Jonathan Cape. (Scholar)
• Fox, Alastair, 1982, Thomas More: History and Providence, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (Scholar)
• Guy, J. A., 1980, The Public Career of Sir Thomas More, Brighton: Harvester Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 2000, Thomas More, London: Arnold. (Scholar)
• –––, 2008, A Daughter’s Love: Thomas More and Margaret More, London: Fourth Estate. (Scholar)
• –––, 2017, Thomas More: A Very Brief History, London: SPCK Publishing. (Scholar)
• Marius, Richard, 1984, Thomas More: A Biography, New York: Knopf. (Scholar)
• Martz, Louis L., 1990, Thomas More: The Search for the Inner Man, New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press. (Scholar)
• Phélippeau, Marie-Claire, 2016, Thomas More, Paris: Gallimard. In French. (Scholar)
• Paul, Joanne, 2017, Thomas More, Cambridge: Polity. (Scholar)

E. Greek and Latin Writers Cited

• Augustine, The City of God, edited and translated by R. W. Dyson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
• –––, The Trinity, translated by Edmund Hill, New York: New City Press, 1991.
• Henry VIII, Assertio Septem Sacramentorum or Defence of the Seven Sacrament, edited by Louis O’Donovan, New York: Benziger Brothers, 1908.
• Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, edited by Edith Hamilon and Huntington Cairns, Princeton, NJ: Princton University Press, 1985. Includes:
  • Phaedo, 40–98,
  • Philebus, 1086–1150.
• Plutarch, “Life of Solon”, in Plutarch’s Lives, volume 1, translated by John Dryden, New York: Modern Library, 2001, 106–28. (Scholar)

F. Selected Secondary Studies

• Adams, Robert P., 1962, The Better Part of Valor: More, Erasmus, Colet, and Vives on Humanism, War, and Peace, 1496–1535, Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. (Scholar)
• Baker, David, 1993, “First Among Equals: The Utopian Princeps”, Moreana, 30(115–116/3–4): 33–45. doi:10.3366/more.1993.30.3-4.6 (Scholar)
• Baker, David Weil, 1999, Divulging Utopia: Radical Humanism in Sixteenth-Century England, Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. (Scholar)
• Baker-Smith, Dominic, 1991 [2000], More’s “Utopia”, London/New York: Harper Collins; reprint Toronto/Buffalo, NY: University of Toronto Press, 2000. (Scholar)
• –––, 1994, “Uses of Plato by Erasmus and More”, in Platonism and the English Imagination, Anna Baldwin and Sarah Hutton (eds.), Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 86–99. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511553806.010 (Scholar)
• Barron, Caroline M., 2011, “The Making of a London Citizen”, in Logan 2011: 1–21. doi:10.1017/ccol9780521888622.002">10.1017/ccol9780521888622.002 (Scholar)
• Betteridge, Thomas, 2013, Writing Faith and Telling Tales: Literature, Politics, and Religion in the Work of Thomas More, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. (Scholar)
• Bolchazy, Ladislaus J., Gregory Gichan, and Frederick Theobald, 1978, A Concordance to the “Utopia” of St. Thomas More, Hildesheim/New York: G. Olms. (Scholar)
• Bradshaw, Brendan, 1991, “Transalpine Humanism”, in The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450–1700, J. H. Burns (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 95–131. doi:10.1017/chol9780521247160.006 (Scholar)
• Brooks, Veronica, 2021, “The Political Theory of Thomas More’s Epigrammata”, Moreana, 58(2): 188–205. doi:10.3366/more.2021.0103 (Scholar)
• Cave, Terence (ed.), 2008, Thomas More’s “Utopia” in Early Modern Europe: Paratexts and Contexts, Manchester: Manchester University Press. (Scholar)
• Cormack, Bradin, 2007, A Power to Do Justice: Jurisdiction, English Literature, and the Rise of Common Law, 1509–1625, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Scholar)
• Cousins, A. D. and Damian Grace (eds.), 2009, A Companion to Thomas More, Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. (Scholar)
• Curtis, Catherine, 2006a, “’The Best State of the Commonwealth’: Thomas More and Quentin Skinner”, in Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Annabel Brett and James Tully (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 93–112. (Scholar)
• –––, 2006b, “From Sir Thomas More to Robert Burton: The Laughing Philosopher in the Early Modern Period”, in The Philosopher in Early Modern Europe, Conal Condren, Stephen Gaukroger, and Ian Hunter (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 90–112. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511490460.005 (Scholar)
• –––, 2011, “More’s Public Life”, in Logan 2011: 69–92. doi:10.1017/ccol9780521888622.005 (Scholar)
• Curtright, Travis, 2012, The One Thomas More, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. (Scholar)
• Duffy, Eamon, 2017, Reformation Divided: Catholics, Protestants and the Conversion of England, London/New York: Bloomsbury. (Scholar)
• Duncan, Douglas, 1979, “More”, in Ben Jonson and the Lucianic Tradition, London: Cambridge University Press, 52–76. (Scholar)
• Fleisher, Martin, 1973, Radical Reform and Political Persuasion in the Life and Writings of Thomas More, Geneva: Droz. (Scholar)
• Gardiner Rodgers, Katherine, 2011, “The Lessons Of Gethsemane: De Tristitia Christi”, in Logan 2011: 239–262. doi:10.1017/ccol9780521888622.013 (Scholar)
• Gentrup, William and Elizabeth McCutcheon (eds.), 2022, A Companion to Margaret More Studies: Life Records, Essential Texts, and Critical Essays, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. (Scholar)
• Gogan, Brian, 1982, The Common Corps of Christendom: Ecclesiological Themes in the Writings of Sir Thomas More, Leiden: Brill. (Scholar)
• Goldhill, Simon, 2002, Who Needs Greek? Contests in the Cultural History of Hellenism, Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. (Scholar)
• Greenblatt, Stephen, 1980, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare, Chicago: Chicago University Press. (Scholar)
• Hexter, J. H., 1952, More’s “Utopia”: The Biography of an Idea, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• Jones, Sarah Rees, 2001, “Thomas More’s Utopia and Medieval London”, in Pragmatic Utopias: Ideals and Communities, 1200–1630, Rosemary Horrox and Sarah Rees Jones (eds), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 117–135. (Scholar)
• Kaufman, Peter Iver, 2007, Incorrectly Political: Augustine and Thomas More, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. (Scholar)
• Kelly, Henry Ansgar, Louis W. Karlin, and Gerard Wegemer (eds.), 2011, Thomas More’s Trial by Jury: A Procedural and Legal Review with a Collection of Documents, Woodbridge, Suffolk/Rochester, NY: Boydell Press. (Scholar)
• Kinney, Daniel, 1981, “More’s Letter to Dorp: Remapping the Trivium”, Renaissance Quarterly, 34(2): 179–210. doi:10.2307/2860780 (Scholar)
• Koterski, Joseph W., 2010, “Circe’s Beasts and the Image of God: More’s Creative Appropriation of Pico’s Humanist Spirituality”, Moreana, 47(179–180/1–2): 45–62. doi:10.3366/more.2010.47.1-2.5 (Scholar)
• Lehman, Jeffrey S., 2013, “Seeing Tyranny in More’s History of King Richard III”, Moreana, 50(191–192/1–2): 131–157. doi:10.3366/more.2013.50.1-2.8 (Scholar)
• Logan, George M., 1983, The Meaning of More’s “Utopia”, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (Scholar)
• ––– (ed.), 2011, The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More, Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CCOL9780521888622

  [This includes valuable bibliographical information.]

  (Scholar)
• McConica, James, 2011, “Thomas More as Humanist”, in Logan 2011: 22–45. doi:10.1017/ccol9780521888622.003 (Scholar)
• –––, 1981, “The Patrimony of Thomas More”, in History & Imagination: Essays in Honor of H.R. Trevor-Roper, Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Valerie Pearl, and Blair Worden (eds), New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 56–71. (Scholar)
• McCutcheon, Elizabeth, 1971, “Denying the Contrary: More’s Use of Litotes in the Utopia”, Moreana, 8(31–32/3–4): 106–121. doi:10.3366/more.1971.8.3-4.14 (Scholar)
• –––, 1983, My Dear Peter: The “Ars Poetica” and Hermeneutics for More’s “Utopia”, Angers: Moreanum. (Scholar)
• –––, 2011, “More’s Rhetoric”, in Logan 2011: 46–68. doi:10.1017/ccol9780521888622.004 (Scholar)
• –––, 2022, “‘A Young, Virtuous, and Well-Learned Gentlewoman’: Margaret More Roper in the Republic of Letters”, in Gentrup and McCutcheon 2022: 123–157. (Scholar)
• McCutcheon, R. R., 1993, “Heresy and Dialogue: The Humanist Approaches of Erasmus and More”, Viator, 24: 357–384. doi:10.1484/j.viator.2.301254 (Scholar)
• Majeske, Andrew J., 2006, Equity in English Renaissance Literature: Thomas More and Edmund Spenser, (Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory), New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203959985 (Scholar)
• Marc’hadour, Germain, 1969, The Bible in the Works of Thomas More, 5 volumes, Nieuwkoop, Netherlands: B. De Graaf (Scholar)
• Mehan, Matthew, 2018, “Senecan Sententiae in Sir Thomas More”, Moreana, 55(210/2): 127–149. doi:10.3366/more.2018.0039 (Scholar)
• Mitjans, Frank, 2023, Thomas More’s Vocation, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. (Scholar)
• Mock, Carle, 2011, “The Structure, Design, and Argument of Thomas More’s Fortune Verses”, Moreana, 48(185–186/3–4): 69–120. doi:10.3366/more.2011.48.3-4.6 (Scholar)
• Nelson, Eric, 2004, The Greek Tradition in Republican Thought, (Ideas in Context 69), Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511490644 (Scholar)
• Renner, Bernd, 2018, “‘Real versus ideal’: Utopia and the Early Modern Satirical Tradition”, Renaissance and Reformation, 42(3): 47–66. (Scholar)
• Schön, Katharina-Maria, 2022, “Tamquam alter Lucianus: The Lucianic Legacy in Thomas More’s Utopia”, Moreana, 59(2): 165–192. doi:10.3366/more.2022.0124 (Scholar)
• Skinner, Quentin, 1987, “Sir Thomas More’s Utopia and the Language of Renaissance Humanism”, in The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe, Anthony Pagden (ed.), Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 123–158. Reprinted as “Thomas More’s Vision of True Nobility”, in his Visions of Politics, 3 vols, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, vol. 2, pp. 213–44. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511521447.008 (Scholar)
• –––, 1988, “Political Philosophy”, in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, C. B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, Eckhard Kessler, and Jill Kraye (eds), Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 387–452. doi:10.1017/chol9780521251044.014 (Scholar)
• Sowards, J. K., 1989, “On Education: More’s Debt to Erasmus”, Moreana, 26(100/1): 103–123. doi:10.3366/more.1989.26.1.20 (Scholar)
• Sylvester, Richard S., 1967, “A Part of His Own: Thomas More’s Literary Personality in His Early Works”, Moreana, 4(15–16/3–4): 29–42. doi:10.3366/more.1967.4.3-4.7 (Scholar)
• Sylvester, R. S. and G. P. Marc’hadour (eds.), 1977, Essential Articles for the Study of Thomas More, Hamden, CT: Archon Books. (Scholar)
• Wegemer, Gerard B., 1996, Thomas More on Statesmanship, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. (Scholar)
• –––, 2011, Young Thomas More and the Arts of Liberty, New York: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511921834 (Scholar)

The journal Moreana (1963– ) is published biannually by the Association Amici Thomae Mori and contains much important material.

G. Bibliographic Studies

• Boswell, Jackson Campbell, 1994, Sir Thomas More in the English Renaissance: An Annotated Catalogue, Binghampton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies (Scholar)
• Geritz, Albert J., 2000, Thomas More: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism, 1935–1997, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press (Scholar)
• Gibson, R. W., 1961, St. Thomas More: A Preliminary Bibliography of His Works and of Moreana to the Year 1750, New Have, CT: Yale University Press (Scholar)
• Smith, Constance, 1981, An Updating of R. W. Gibson’s St. Thomas More: A Preliminary Bibliography, St. Louis, MO: Center for Reformation Research (Scholar)