Islandia (novel)
First edition cover
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| Author | Austin Tappan Wright |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Farrar & Rinehart |
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Publication date
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1942 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 1014 pp |
| ISBN | |
| LC Class | PS3545.R157 |
| Islandia | |
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Karain semi-continent, with Islandia at south (top)
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Islandia in 1907
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| Islandia location | |
| Other name(s) | Kingdom of Islandia |
| Created by | Austin Tappan Wright |
| Genre | Utopian fiction |
| Type | Constitutional monarchy |
| Ethnic group(s) | Islandians, Bants |
| Notable locations | The City (capital) |
| Language(s) | Islandian |
Islandia is a classic novel of utopian fiction by Austin Tappan Wright, a U. C. Berkeley Law School Professor. Written as a hobby over a long period, it was edited down by a third by his wife and daughter, and first published in hardcover by Farrar & Rinehart in 1942, eleven years after the author's 1931 death.
Islandia is a fully realized world which has drawn parallels to Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, but it contains no magic, so it is much more a utopia than a standard fantasy.
The original Islandia was conceived by Wright while he was yet a small boy. Creating its civilization became his lifelong leisure occupation. The complete Islandia papers include "a detailed history ... complete with geography, genealogy, representations from its literature, language and culture." The complete and never published version of Islandia can be found in the Houghton Library at Harvard University. A 61-page Introduction to Islandia by Basil Davenport was published along with the original novel in 1942.
The protagonist of the novel is an American named John Lang, who graduates from Harvard in 1910. The setting is Islandia, an imaginary country set in the real world of that time. This remote nation "at the tip of the Karain semi-continent" is near "the unexplored wastes of Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere." The citizens have imposed "the Hundred Law, limiting access to Islandia to a bare one hundred visitors at a time." Wright may have had in mind both the self-imposed isolation of Siam, starting in 1688, and that of Japan, starting soon after the Battle of Sekigahara in 1603. In any case, for the country of Islandia, these two factors have shrouded this nation in mystery.
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