Ioláni, or, Tahíti as it was: A romance [Hardcover]

Wilkie Collins, whom many consider the originator of the modern detective story in novels such as The Moonstone and The Woman in White, wrote this novel when he was 19 and fired up with dreams of far-off places and heroic derring-do. Set in Polynesia in the days before European colonization, Iolani is filled with beautiful and long-suffering dusky-skinned women (with European features and heaving bosoms), wicked high priests, and even wild-eyed wild men from the forest. There are pitched battles between tribes, horrid pagan rituals, and plenty of damsels in distress, all played out against an exotic, tropical background of white beaches and swaying palm trees. In short, this is exactly the kind of overwrought romance one might expect from an imaginative young man with literary longings. Iolani, the title character, is the villain of the piece; shortly after his wife, Idia, gives birth to a son, he decides that in keeping with the religious practices of their tribe, the child must be put to death. Idia objects and ends up fleeing with the newborn and a beautiful young friend to seek protection from another tribe. Much melodrama ensues as Collins tries to fit the sensational conventions of the gothic potboiler popularized by writers such as Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe into a South Seas setting.

Never published during its author's lifetime, this is a novel that probably only Collins scholars could love. But even in the overheated prose and patently second- and third-hand descriptions of exotic locales, one can detect the seeds of his later, more successful works. Certainly Collins's fascination with sensational plots is evident here, but so is his radical (for the time) depiction of strong and unconventional women. Read Iolani for its historical interest; then take a look at The Moonstone to see how well Wilkie Collins grew up. --Margaret Prior

The natives are eternally restless in Victorian suspense-master Collinss hitherto unpublished first novel, rejected by both Longmans and Chapman and Hall in 1844. The manuscript disappeared from public view in 1903 and only reemerged in 1991. Editor Nadel (English/Univ. of British Columbia) has crafted a punctillious critical edition of a tale clearly designed to tap the popularity of Herman Melville's roughly contemporaneous Typee: or a Peep at Polynesian Life. The narrative follows the fortunes of the king's scheming brother, Iol ni, priest of the war-god Oro, and his helpmeet, Ida, after they break decisively over his demand that she kill their firstborn son, as is the Tahitian tradition. Ida and Aim ta, an orphan she has taken under her wing, fall into the protective hands of rival chieftain Mahn, who loves Aim ta. When an oracle tells Iol ni that Oro demands the sacrifice of Ida, he leads a party that recaptures her, but a counterattack by Aim ta's band rescues her in the nick of time, banishes Iol ni and the king, and installs Aim ta as the new ruler. Given the unrest and resentment among the islanders, not to mention Iol ni's new alliance with the sorcerer Otah ra, you can be sure that more intrigue is in store. Despite all the melodrama, the presentation remains static, hobbled by the second hand nature of Collins's exoticism (unlike Melville, he had learned about his setting only from books) and by the ceremonious formal rhetoric, which sounds more 18th-century than 19th. Although it airs some of Collins's most cherished themesthe oppressiveness of patriarchal cultures and the courage of women who revolt against them, the unexpected hospitality of pariahsthere's not a trace in this text of the vividness and economy that distinguish The Woman in White and The Moonstone. Collins scholars will want to see the young author's debut. Less committed readers may well accept the verdict of Longmans and Chapman and Hall. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"It is dramatic and picturesque. It has the immense merit T.S. Eliot found in his later works, +of never being dull. Most significantly, it has a spunky heroine of unconventional morality." -- Lynne Truss, The Times (London

"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." -- Catherine Peters, The Sunday Telegraph

"Wilkie Collins has a particular gift for rendering striking locations and for conveying a strong sense of weather and mood. It is this gift which sets him apart form other sensation novelists of the Victorian period. . . . [He] recreates the lush verdure, mountains, waterfalls and lakes of Tahiti in a strongly romantic style." -- Leone Ormond, Literary Review

"It is not an exaggeration to claim that the resurfacing of Iolani, the first stab at fiction by a major Victorian novelist, is a literary event of genuine importance."--Glenn Horowitz, Bookseller, New York.

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 and remained there--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 of moralists; 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.

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889), perhaps best known for The Moonstone and The Woman in White, was the author of more than thirty novels, more than fifty short stories, as well as many plays and essays. Collins, even more than his close friend Charles Dickens, was a master at the suspenseful Victorian thriller. Among his other novels are No Name, The Law and the Lady, Armadale, and The Dead Secret. Ira B. Nadel is Professor of English at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Biography: Fiction, Fact, and Form, Joyce and the Jews, and Various Positions: A Life of Leonard Cohen. He has edited The Letters of Ezra Pound to Alice Corbin Henderson and Wilkie Collins's novel The Dead Secret. He is also the General Editor of the Cambridge Companion to Ezra Pound.