Mark Twain

The Curious Republic of Gondour Mark Twain

This article is about Mark Twain's fictional republic. For the kingdom in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, see Gondor. Gondour is a fictitious republic created by Mark Twain in his short story "The Curious Republic of Gondour", and popularized by Robert A. Heinlein and his heirs. Twain proposed a state in which all citizens have at least one vote, but where further votes (up to a dozen) could be acquired through education, which was provided by the state for free, or by relative wealth. Furthermore, no one was accepted to any public office without passing strenuous competitive examinations. Heinlein's Expanded Universe spells it as Gondor. Nevil Shute uses the idea of multiple votes according to attainment in his novel In the Wet.