The Isle of Pines: an imperfect utopia

Abstract

Henry Neville’s The Isle of Pines (1668) is an early and popular example of fictional travelwriting. It describes the unorthodox way of living of an insular society founded by a few survivors of a shipwreck. Although in a light tone, Neville raises sensitive topics: the then current gender ideology, racism, common property, and the violent conducts of European settlers. He also ponders the role of religious doctrine in the moulding of individuals. So, measuring what Neville conveys in a positive or negative light could classify this fiction as eutopia or dystopia. It is undoubtedly the depiction of a community of imperfect mortals, an imperfect utopia, thereby contradicting the genre’s prime definition as the recipe for a planned –ergo, happy– society.