The Curious Republic of Gondour

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"The Curious Republic of Gondour" is a short story by Mark Twain, fist published in the October 1875 issue of the Atlantic Monthly.

Written in the first person, it relates a visit by the unnamed narrator to a state in which all citizens are guaranteed at least one vote, but where additional votes may be acquired on the basis of personal merit. Up to eight further votes can be acquired through education, which is provided for free by the state; votes are also automatically gained by the acquisition of wealth (these being unlimited in number.) A second condition of Gondourian democracy is that no one may be seated in a public office without first passing a strenuous competitive examination. Twain intended for these measures to limit the political power of the lower classes, whom he considered unfit to direct public affairs because of their susceptibility to demagogues.

Heinlein's Expanded Universe discusses the story,^[1] though misspelling the toponym as "Gondor."

Nevil Shute proposed a similar multiple-vote scheme in his 1953 novel In the Wet; however, he envisioned a maximum of seven votes per citizen, with each tied to a specific personal attainment (military service, life abroad, starting a business.) The exceptions were the first and seventh votes, the former being universal and the latter only granted as a mark of special distinction by the monarch.

References

^ Robert A. Heinlein, Afterword to "Who are the heirs of Patrick Henry', 1980; in Expanded Universe, Baen Books, Riverdale, NY, 2003, pp. 326-327

External links

The Curious Republic of Gondour and Other Whimsical Sketches public domain audiobook at LibriVox
The Curious Republic of Gondour, and Other Whimsical Sketches at Project Gutenberg

v t e Mark Twain
Bibliography
Novels	The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today The Adventures of Tom Sawyer The Prince and the Pauper Adventures of Huckleberry Finn A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court The American Claimant Tom Sawyer Abroad Pudd'nhead Wilson Tom Sawyer, Detective Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc A Double Barrelled Detective Story A Horse's Tale The Mysterious Stranger Hellfire Hotchkiss
Short stories	"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" "Cannibalism in the Cars" "A Literary Nightmare" "A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage" "The Great Revolution in Pitcairn" "1601" "The Stolen White Elephant" "Luck" "The Million Pound Bank Note" "A Double Barrelled Detective Story" "Those Extraordinary Twins" "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" "A Dog's Tale" "Extracts from Adam's Diary" "The War Prayer" "Eve's Diary" "Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" "My Platonic Sweetheart" "Advice for Good Little Girls"
Collections	Mark Twain's (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance Sketches New and Old Mark Twain's Library of Humor Merry Tales The £1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories
Plays	Is He Dead?
Essays	"The Awful German Language" "On the Decay of the Art of Lying" "Advice to Youth" How to Tell a Story and Other Essays "Concerning the Jews" "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" "Edmund Burke on Croker and Tammany" "What Is Man?" "The United States of Lyncherdom" "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" Letters from the Earth
Nonfiction	Territorial Enterprise letters Letters from Hawaii The Innocents Abroad Roughing It Old Times on the Mississippi A Tramp Abroad Life on the Mississippi Following the Equator Is Shakespeare Dead? Autobiography of Mark Twain (Chapters from My Autobiography) King Leopold's Soliloquy The Private History of a Campaign That Failed Christian Science
Speeches	"Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism" "Votes for Women"
Places and events	Family cabin Birthplace State Historic Site State Park Boyhood home and museum Mark Twain Cave Mark Twain in Nevada Territorial Enterprise Sagebrush School Quarry Farm Mark Twain House Stormfield Twain–Ament indemnities controversy
Popular culture	Mark Twain Prize for American Humor Mark Twain Tonight! The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985) Mark Twain (2001 documentary) Twain and Shaw Do Lunch (2011 play) Mark Twain: The Musical
Family	Olivia Langdon Clemens (wife) Susy Clemens (daughter) Clara Clemens (daughter) Jean Clemens (daughter) John M. Clemens (father) Jane Lampton Clemens (mother) Orion Clemens (brother)
Related	Jap Herron Center For Mark Twain Studies Mark Twain National Forest National Tom Sawyer Days

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