Henry Neville

Henry Neville was an English political writer, satirist, and politician born in 1620. He is most often remembered today for The Isle of Pines (1668), a brief tale of shipwreck and society-building that has been read as an early work of speculative fiction as well as a pointed satire.

Neville came from a well-connected Berkshire family and was educated at Oxford. During the Commonwealth period he was active in public life, serving in Parliament and later becoming involved in republican politics. His career was touched by the dangers of the age too: after the Restoration he was imprisoned in the Tower of London on suspicion of involvement in anti-government plotting.

Alongside his political life, Neville wrote works that argued about government, liberty, and the balance of power. Plato Redivivus, one of his best-known political books, shows the same habit that marks his fiction: using lively, accessible writing to explore serious public questions.