THE ISLE OF PINES AND PLATO REDIVIVUS
By Henry Neville
Edited and with an Introduction by David Womersley
 

Henry Neville (1620–1694) was “an experienced political actor who united a practitioner’s sense of possibility with literary flair and imagination as he struggled to achieve headway for his republican commitments in the deceptive waters of late Stuart monarchy” (from the Introduction).

In The Isle of Pines, like Harrington before him, Neville uses a tropical island trope to flirt with political implications, although it is unclear quite how serious and profound these implications are intended to be. His Plato Redivivus is often read as a moderate adaptation of Harringtonian principles to the realities of a monarchical system. The only scholarly edition of Henry Neville’s most important writings, the Liberty Fund edition offers for the first time a thorough annotation of both texts.