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Islandia (novel)Islandia is a classic novel of utopian fiction by Austin Tappan Wright, a University of California, Berkeley Law School Professor. Written as a hobby over a long period, the manuscript was edited posthumously and reduced by about a third by author/editor Mark Saxton with the advice and consent of Wright's wife and daughter, and was published first in hardcover format by the company Farrar & Rinehart in 1942, eleven years after the author's 1931 death.

Islandia is a fully realized imaginary country which has been likened in that respect to Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, though more akin to a utopia than a standard fantasy.

The original Islandia was conceived by Wright while he was yet a 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 and narrator of the novel is an American named John Lang, who graduates from Harvard University in 1905. 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 under the Tokugawa shogunate.

Plot
Islandia'Islandia' locationCreated byAustin Tappan WrightGenreUtopian fictionInformationTypeConstitutional monarchyEthnic group(s)Islandians, BantsLocationsThe City (capital)Population3 millionOther name(s)Kingdom of IslandiaLanguage(s)Islandian
While an undergraduate at Harvard, John Lang becomes friends with an Islandian fellow-student named Dorn, and decides to learn the Islandian language (of which there are very few speakers outside Islandia). Once he has graduated, his uncle, a prominent businessman, arranges his appointment as American consul to Islandia, based primarily on his ability to speak the language. Gradually John Lang learns that his tacit mission as American consul is to do whatever is necessary to increase American trade opportunities in Islandia. He does not begin this mission right away, preferring to get to know the country and the people first.

John Lang meets and becomes infatuated with Dorn's sister, Dorna. They spend some time together alone, which John finds unnerving at first, since they are not chaperoned. When Dorna comes to understand John's feelings, she tells him that she does not love him in return in that way (though he wonders whether she means "cannot", or "will not"). She accepts the marriage proposal of the King instead, a handsome young man who has been courting her for some time.

One of the culminations of the plot is the decision by the people of Islandia to reject the demands of the Great Powers for unrestricted trade and immigration, choosing instead to maintain their tradition of isolation. As this political struggle intensifies, John Lang sympathizes with the Islandians, to the great disappointment of many American businessmen who desire new lucrative trade opportunities, including John Lang's uncle.

Near the end of the novel, John Lang is allowed to become a citizen of Islandia as a reward for heroism during an attack by a neighboring group. By this point he has fallen in love with an American friend with whom he has maintained steady correspondence. They decide to marry, and when she arrives in Islandia she, too, is granted citizenship.

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