Reproduction of the original: The Isle of Pines (1668) by Henry Neville

Reproduction of the original: The Isle of Pines (1668) by Henry Neville

A short fiction of shipwreck and discovery written by the politician Henry Neville (1620-1694), The Isle of Pines is only beginning to draw critical attention, and until now no scholarly edition of the work has appeared. In the first full-length study of The Isle of Pines, supported by the first fully critical edition, John Scheckter discloses how Neville's work offers a critique of scientific discourse, enacts complicated engagements of race and gender, and interrogates the methods and consequences of European exploration. The volume offers a new critical model for applying post-colonial and postmodern examination strategies to an early modern work. Scheckter argues that the structure and publication history of the fiction, with its separate, unreliable narrators, along with its several topics-shipwreck survival, the founding of a new society, the initial phases of European colonization-are imbued with the sense of uncertainty that permeated the era.

"The Isle of Pines" is a book by Henry Neville published in 1668. It has been cited as the first 'Robinsonade' before Defoe's work. It is also one of the early Utopian narratives, along with Thomas More's 'Utopia' and Francis Bacon's 'New Atlantis'. The book explores the story of these castaways — the Briton George Pine and four female survivors, who are shipwrecked on an idyllic island. Pine finds that the island produces food abundantly with little or no effort, and he soon enjoys a leisurely existence, engaging in open sexual activity with the four women. Each of the women gives birth to children, who in subsequent generations multiply to produce distinct tribes, which are at war with each other...

This volume is a study of 'The Isle of Pines'. The author offers a critique of scientific discourse, enacts complicated engagements of race and gender, and interrogates the methods and consequences of European exploration.