- Hardcover: 250 pages
- Publisher: Princeton University Press; illustrated edition edition (19 April 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 069103446X
- ISBN-13: 978-0691034461
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 14.2 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,062,429 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
There are plenty of characteristic Collinsian mysteries. . . . [F]or anyone who enjoys Collins's mature work, it is intriguing to see how many of his later preoccupations appear in Iolani.
Product Description
Written 150 years ago, never published, and presumed lost for nearly a century, Wilkie Collins's earliest novel now appears in print for the first time. Iolani is a sensational romance -- a tale of terror and suspense, bravery and betrayal, set against the lush backdrop of Tahiti. The book's complicated history is worthy of a writer famous for intricate plots hinging on long-kept secrets. Collins wrote the book as a young man in the early 1840s, twenty years before The Moonstone and The Woman in White made his name among Victorian novelists. He failed to find a publisher for the work, shelved the manuscript for years, and eventually gave it to an acquaintance. It disappeared into the hands of private collectors, where it languished unknown -- acquiring mythical status as a lost novel -- from the turn of the century until its sudden appearance on the rare book market in New York in 1991. This first edition appears with the permission of the new owners, who keep the mystery alive by remaining anonymous.
The novel is set in Tahiti prior to European contact. It tells the story of the diabolical high priest, Iolani, and the heroic young woman, Idia, who bears his child. Determined to defy the Tahitian custom of killing firstborn children, Idia and her friend Aimata flee with the baby and take refuge among Iolani's enemies. The vengeful priest pursues them, setting into motion a plot that features civil war, sorcery, sacrificial rites, wild madmen, treachery, and love. Collins explores themes that he would return to again and again in his career: oppression by sinister, patriarchal figures, the bravery of forceful, unorthodox women, the psychology of the criminal mind, the hypocrisy ofmoralists, and Victorian ideas of the exotic. As Ira Nadel shows in his introduction, the novel casts new light on Collins's development as a writer and on the creation of his later masterpieces. A sample page from the manuscript appears as the frontispiece to this edition. The publication of Iolani is a major literary event: a century and half late, Wilkie Collins makes his literary debut as he originally intended it.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Very interesting first novel by Wilkie Collins. It shows how he wrote when he started. Wilkie Collins wrote the book when he was still working at a tea merchant and before the biography of his father. Travel books to strange places were very popular at that time. Wilkie probably got his information on Tahiti from a book that was published shortly before that time. The story is not as good as most of his later novels. The introduction by Ira Nadel is very good. She gives a nice introdution to Wilkie Collins and how he was living and working in that period. The introduction by itself could be a good reason to buy this book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
The stumbling first work of a promising young author!
29 Oct 2005
Format:Hardcover
Now revered as a giant of classic English literature, Wilkie Collins clearly learned from the missteps of his first efforts. For this, we can be grateful! But it must be admitted that Collins' first attempt at a novel has an overwrought hoary plot much more suited to a breathless Harlequin romance or a melodramatic soap opera set in the South Pacific.
Idia, abandoned as a young girl and barely past childhood herself, finds the child, Aimata, forsaken by her natural guardians, and assumes the responsibility for care and upbringing. Although Aimata has always felt some deep misgivings about him, Idia is swept away by Iolani, the high priest of Oro, and bears his son. When Iolani attempts to enforce the Tahitian custom of slaying his first born, Idia, Aimata and the child flee for their lives seeking refuge in the village of rival chieftain, Mahini. Falling in love with the girl child, Aimata, Mahini sees the events as an opportunity to achieve his matrimonial as well as his leadership ambitions and provokes an all out tribal war with Iolani and his brother, the king of Tahiti. Sorcery, sacrifice, bloodshed, treachery and mayhem ensue.
While the plot and the milieu are so far removed from what we will enjoy in Collins' later work as to be sadly laughable, there are germs of ideas and spots of beauty that shine through and clearly persist into the much more polished output for which he became so famous - the psychology of female victim and male villain; assertive, independent and aggressive heroines; the use of his own voice as a narrator to insert explanatory information from time to time; courage and determination in the face of danger and extremity; lush, descriptive passages -
"The thunder still sounded its hollow retreat in the distance, and the rain drops still pattered faintly on the torn, dripping leaves of the forest. The waters of the lake, had changed in the night to a monotonous dun colour and still heaved wearily about, though the violence of the tempest was over and past. The tops of the mountains were hidden in deep mists and the thick, black clouds of a few hours since, had amalgamated into great masses of a grey hue, cold and indistinct to look upon, yet promising, in the eastern heaven, a bright and beautiful day."
and short gems of philosophy that cannot fail to provoke thought and discussion -
"While liberty frees the body, captivity loosens the soul. It is when the body is in bonds, that the spirit most experiences its perilous privilege of freedom."
If you're a confirmed Collins fan, you're sure to enjoy Iolani and recognize it for what it is - the stumbling first work of a promising young author. If you have yet to read anything by Collins, for goodness' sake, be sure you DON'T start here! Pick up A Woman in White or The Moonstone, and move on to Blind Love, Armadale and The Law and the Lady. By then you'll be a confirmed fan and you can come back to this one.
Paul Weiss
Idia, abandoned as a young girl and barely past childhood herself, finds the child, Aimata, forsaken by her natural guardians, and assumes the responsibility for care and upbringing. Although Aimata has always felt some deep misgivings about him, Idia is swept away by Iolani, the high priest of Oro, and bears his son. When Iolani attempts to enforce the Tahitian custom of slaying his first born, Idia, Aimata and the child flee for their lives seeking refuge in the village of rival chieftain, Mahini. Falling in love with the girl child, Aimata, Mahini sees the events as an opportunity to achieve his matrimonial as well as his leadership ambitions and provokes an all out tribal war with Iolani and his brother, the king of Tahiti. Sorcery, sacrifice, bloodshed, treachery and mayhem ensue.
While the plot and the milieu are so far removed from what we will enjoy in Collins' later work as to be sadly laughable, there are germs of ideas and spots of beauty that shine through and clearly persist into the much more polished output for which he became so famous - the psychology of female victim and male villain; assertive, independent and aggressive heroines; the use of his own voice as a narrator to insert explanatory information from time to time; courage and determination in the face of danger and extremity; lush, descriptive passages -
"The thunder still sounded its hollow retreat in the distance, and the rain drops still pattered faintly on the torn, dripping leaves of the forest. The waters of the lake, had changed in the night to a monotonous dun colour and still heaved wearily about, though the violence of the tempest was over and past. The tops of the mountains were hidden in deep mists and the thick, black clouds of a few hours since, had amalgamated into great masses of a grey hue, cold and indistinct to look upon, yet promising, in the eastern heaven, a bright and beautiful day."
and short gems of philosophy that cannot fail to provoke thought and discussion -
"While liberty frees the body, captivity loosens the soul. It is when the body is in bonds, that the spirit most experiences its perilous privilege of freedom."
If you're a confirmed Collins fan, you're sure to enjoy Iolani and recognize it for what it is - the stumbling first work of a promising young author. If you have yet to read anything by Collins, for goodness' sake, be sure you DON'T start here! Pick up A Woman in White or The Moonstone, and move on to Blind Love, Armadale and The Law and the Lady. By then you'll be a confirmed fan and you can come back to this one.
Paul Weiss
AN INTRODUCTION TO WILKIE COLLINS
9 May 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I CONSIDER MYSELF MOST FORTUNATE IN HAVING BEEN ABLE TO OBTAIN THIS VOLUME; I AM AN AVID READER OF THIS AUTHOR'S FICTIONAL WORKS AND HIS FIRST NOVEL REVEALS MANY OF THE THEMES TO BE DEVELOPED IN HIS LATER WORK: ABUSE OF AUTHORITY, WOMEN WHO REVOLT AGAINST CONVENTIONAL IDEAS, THE DARK SIDE OF RELIGION, PSYCHOLOGICAL INSIGHTS INTO PEOPLE WHO HAVE SUFFERED TRAUMA. THE SUSPENSE AND THRILLER ASPECTS OF COLLINS' LATER WORKS ARE ALSO PRESENT, BESIDES THE EXOTIC LOCATION AND SOCIETY, AND MAKE THIS NOVEL QUITE A PLEASANT READ.
THE INTRODUCTION BY IRA B. NADEL SHEDS MUCH LIGHT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF WILKIE COLLINS AS AN AUTHOR AND SHOULD BE READ BY ANYONE WHO IS AS INTERESTED IN THE WORKS OF WILKIE COLLINS AS I AM.
THE INTRODUCTION BY IRA B. NADEL SHEDS MUCH LIGHT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF WILKIE COLLINS AS AN AUTHOR AND SHOULD BE READ BY ANYONE WHO IS AS INTERESTED IN THE WORKS OF WILKIE COLLINS AS I AM.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Blundering and stilted
4 Mar 2008
Format:Hardcover
This is a book that "is what it is." It is a tedious blundering work with stilted language and only a tiny hint of the author, Wilkie Collins, became. I did find the introduction by the editor, Ira Nadel, interesting and informative; I enjoyed reading that but I did not enjoy the book at all.
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