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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Book 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.
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
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. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The stumbling first work of a promising young author!,
By Paul Weiss (Dundas, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Iolani; or, Tahiti as It Was (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
5.0 out of 5 stars
AN INTRODUCTION TO WILKIE COLLINS,
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This review is from: Iolani; or, Tahiti as It Was (Hardcover)
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.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Blundering and stilted,
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This review is from: Iolani; or, Tahiti as It Was (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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