The Isle of Pines, 1668: Henry Neville’s Uncertain Utopia by John Scheckter (review)

In Mr. Scheckter’s apt words, Henry Neville’s Isle of Pines is “a powerful and tricky little book.” It is certainly tricky. Three different editions were published within a month in 1668. Together they present an apparently simple and realistic narrative. George Pines and four women survive a shipwreck on an obscure Indian Ocean island; they build a life for themselves and populate the island. On George’s death his son William becomes ruler and, when William dies, his son Henry takes over. A Dutch ship, captained by Van Sloetten, lands, explores the isle, helps Henry in a time of civil discord, and leaves. George leaves an account (the first edition, or Part One); Van Sloetten adds his (the second edition, or Part Two); the combined version brings the two together; and other framing material furthers the multiplicity of perspectives and meanings, so that interpretations of these voyages and reports range widely.

The Isle is also powerful. Its author, Henry Neville, was active in the Commonwealth and remained good friends with prominent republicans like Harrington. The Isle has been reprinted, reworked, translated, and commented on frequently in the past three and a half centuries (although rarely in the nineteenth). Mr. Scheckter addresses its recurring power in his Introduction, which begins strikingly with a footnote by Thomas Hollis to his edition of 1768; in the note, Hollis uses Neville’s century-old pamphlet to make contemporary political points. Later rewritings and readings of The Isle—including, probably, Mr. Scheckter’s own—also find in The Isle significance for contemporary issues. Neville’s rich and pregnant text anticipates—and participates in—all of these readings.

The 17-page pamphlet is rich enough in meaning and possibilities to be surrounded by another 160 pages of excellent interpretive text. Following the Preface and the Introduction that begins with Hollis’s footnote, Mr. Scheckter produces a “critical text” of his preferred readings after examining many editions of the four printings of Part One, the printed version of Part Two, and the combined version.

In Chapter Two, contemporary translations of The Isle play with the facts and themes of Neville’s Part One. The result, as the chapter’s subtitle announces, is “Texts, Paratexts, and Ghosts”: Neville’s The Isle creates “a space of free travel among multiple meanings,” allowing for “critical negotiations and self-conscious inquiry.” In a brilliant Chapter three, The Isle criticizes the neutrality, authority, and quest for certainty involved in the project of modern natural science and modern empiricism; in The Isle, evidence is uncertain and ambiguous, and authorities suspect.

Chapters Four and Five run against almost all recent interpretations, which regard the societies on the isle as deeply flawed, as Mr. Scheckter’s extensive footnotes indicate. Mr. Scheckter sees that in George’s narrative he and the four women “organize cohesively and mutually,” and after his death their descendants develop a “reasonably well-developed,” egalitarian, nurturing, sustainable society. In Chapter Six, Mr. Scheckter interprets Van Sloetten’s colonial intervention as aggressive and violent, making colonial assumptions about the natives; European colonialism will destroy the gentle society of the isle.

Mr. Scheckter’s admirable reading protocol will challenge all interpreters. “Every line is an abbreviation,” he asserts, and throughout he expands Neville’s abbreviations. His extensive knowledge of the seventeenth century allows him to produce interpretive chapters rich in references or allusions to Neville’s contemporaries, as with The Isle’s running critique of Boyle’s science or Neville’s justification of polygamy. Mr. Scheckter explores the richness of Neville’s multidimensional text by referring to much modern scholarship and, imaginatively, the many drawings in a contemporary edition. Like Neville’s own questioning of authority, he questions the interpretations (and the silences). Everyone who wishes to study The Isle of Pines must engage this book, and all will benefit from the extensive Bibliography.

At the same time, as the editor of a critical edition of The Isle of Pines...