First published in 1762, Sarah Scott's "A Description of Millenium Hall and the Country Adjacent" is a novel that describes an ideal society set up by a group of gentry-class women.
The anonymous narrator is a gentleman travelling with a younger, rakish companion named Lamont; when their carriage breaks down, they seek assistance in a nearby "hospitable mansion" that the narrator subsequently dubs "Millenium Hall" in allusion to its status as an earthly paradise, saying that he "avoid[s] giving the real name, fearing to offend that modesty which has induced [the inhabitants] to conceal their virtues in retirement". Millenium Hall is an all-female, utopian sanctuary. The ladies who reside there are pious paragons, …
"A Description of Millenium Hall and the Country Adjacent" was Scott's most significant novel. It was popular enough to go to four editions by 1778, and interest in it has revived in the 21st century among feminist literary scholars.
