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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a shipwreck story sounded so convincing that readers debated where its imaginary island lay?
In Henry Neville’s The Isle of Pines, English bookkeeper George Pine survives a shipwreck with four women on a lonely Indian Ocean island. The master’s daughter, two maidservants and an enslaved woman of African descent join him in founding a household that grows into a people.
A letter signed by Henry Cornelius van Sloetten presents this strange society as real. Printed in 1668, the tale blends adventure, survival, family history and an openly sexual premise. Its claim to truth persuades early readers across Europe, making the boundary between invention and report part of its lasting interest.
What you’ll discover
- An unlikely island household Meet the castaways whose shared survival becomes the starting point for a whole society.
- A convincing paper trail See how a printed note and a traveller’s letter make fiction look like evidence.
- Family becomes a people Follow the tale’s movement from a small household to named families under Pine’s rule.
- A scandalous castaway premise Explore a brief utopia where sex and family growth sit at the heart of survival.
- Before Robinson Crusoe Discover an early castaway fiction that precedes Robinson Crusoe by half a century.
Who will love it
You will enjoy this if you love literary hoaxes, castaway tales, the roots of Robinson Crusoe, or the detective work of tracing a rare book across the seventeenth-century world.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A printer's fine begins the mystery
- An imprint points toward Cambridge
- The island becomes news across Europe
- Ford tests his own attractive theory
- Neville writes beyond his political retreat
- A shipwreck becomes an island household
- The colony's order faces a test
- Believable details support a deliberate hoax
- Two stories reveal how belief travels
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The Isle of Pines
by Henry Neville · 1668
A bookkeeper and four women wash ashore, and a pamphlet says their children now number thousands.
Medium levelUnder 2 hours to read20 languages
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“Once the hedge of government has been broken down, the vilest people hold the greatest power.”
In short
Imagine a ship's bookkeeper thrown onto a rocky shore by a storm. He is twenty years old.
The Isle of Pines at a glance
- Reading time
- About 1 h 30 min1 h 15 min fast, 1 h 50 min slow
- Length
- 22,000 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1668by Henry Neville
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Cambridge printer is fined in 1668
In 1668 Cambridge, Massachusetts, has two rival printers under the General Court's supervision. Samuel Green is the college printer and has the favor of the Boston authorities. Marmaduke Johnson is the better craftsman, but he has made enemies. Every work must pass licensers, and across the ocean Roger L'Estrange hunts unlicensed presses in England. His zeal pushes the colony to look hard at its own printers.
Green shows that everything on his press has official authorization. Johnson is less lucky. He is caught with one unlicensed pamphlet, The Isle of Pines, and fined five pounds. He petitions the court in repentant language and promises to reform. The fine is never collected.
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Details
- First published
- 1668
- Language
- English
- Level
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Cite this edition
Neville, Henry. The Isle of Pines. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-isle-of-pines.
Neville, H. (2026). The Isle of Pines. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-isle-of-pines (Original work published 1668)
Neville, Henry. The Isle of Pines. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-isle-of-pines.
@book{neville2026isle,
author = {Neville, Henry},
title = {The Isle of Pines},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-isle-of-pines},
note = {First published 1668}
}
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What is The Isle of Pines about?
It tells of George Pine, an English bookkeeper shipwrecked near Madagascar in the days of Elizabeth with four women. They found a colony of thousands, which a Dutch captain visits in 1667 and describes.
Is The Isle of Pines a true story?
No. It is a hoax by Henry Neville, published without his name in London in 1668. Many readers took it for real, and it spread through Dutch, French, Italian and German editions within months.
Who wrote The Isle of Pines and why does it matter?
Henry Neville, a republican politician and translator of Machiavelli. It matters because it is thought to be the first English story built entirely around island life, and some link it to Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.
The author
Henry Neville
1620–1694 · English political writer
Henry Neville (1620–1694) was an English politician and writer who lived in England. He served in Parliament during the Commonwealth. He published The Isle of Pines in 1668 and Plato Redivivus in 1681. He also translated works by the Italian political writer Niccolò Machiavelli into English.
“Once the hedge of government has been broken down, the vilest people hold the greatest power.”
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