From Amazon.com
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
From Kirkus Reviews
The natives are eternally restless in Victorian suspense-master Collinss hitherto unpublished first novel, rejected by both Longmans and Chapman and Hall in 1844.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. --
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