The sole novel written by Robert Paltock, The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, is one of the earliest written examples of science fiction in English, enjoyed as children by notables including the poet Robert Southey; critic, poet, and journalist Leigh Hunt; and novelist Sir Walter Scott. Wilkins serves as the first-person narrator, telling his life’s story to the author, in a common narrative device of the day.

Wilkins’s life had proved an adventure since his childhood, when his father was executed for his part in Monmouth’s rebellion against James II. While his early years proved happy enough, when his mother remarried, her new husband, the squire, shuffled Wilkins off to boarding school at age 14.

While there, he seduces, then marries, his tutor’s lovely servant Patty, and a few years later returns home a young man. To his dismay, his mother has died and his stepfather has claimed his inheritance. He leaves to clerk on a ship, enjoys many adventures, and ends up an unhappy laborer in Angola.

The courageous African slave and fellow laborer Glanlapze helps Wilkins escape. They travel through Africa, with Glanlapze repeatedly proving his heroism in encounters with wild animals and people. They return to Glanlapze’s home for his joyful reunion with his wife and children, then Wilkins joins a gang of homeless youths like himself to steal a ship.

Untrained in navigation skills, the group wrecks the ship, with Wilkins, the only survivor, swept onto an island. There he lives a life similar to that of Daniel Defoe’s protagonist in Robinson Crusoe (1719), the likely model for Paltock’s work. Unable to return to his ship for any supplies, Wilkins must live wholly off the land’s offering of plant and animal life. He explains the mysterious voices he hears that seem to come from above as unusual bird noises.

In the next plot turn, Wilkins discovers a lovely injured girl outside his hut, whom he revives and nurses back to health. He learns that she and her fellow islanders can fly, details about which Paltock remains vague, simply depending on readers’ willingness to suspend their disbelief. Wilkins believes the “news” of Patty’s death that comes to him in a vision and decides to marry the girl, Youwarkee.

Many of her moves are batlike, and Wilkins must fashion a pair of dark glasses for her to wear to protect her sensitive eyes from offensive sunlight. He learns more about her, and the “graundee” that allows her to fly, including the fact that she worships a God who, although his name is Collwar, Wilkins accepts as the same spirit as his own Jehovah. He convinces her that she should not worship idols, and she adopts Christianity.

After hearing about his ship, she flies to it one day and returns with supplies, later fashioning waterproof containers in which to float more articles to the island. Several years later, Youwarkee visits her family and returns with several members, whom Wilkins impresses with various belongings, including his gun.

Before long, Wilkins ingratiates himself with the king by discovering a plot against his life. As the king’s favorite, he continues to help him defeat adversaries, introducing the use of several handy English weapons, including a cannon that breaks apart the flying formation of the enemy.

Wilkins proceeds to civilize the culture, leading a move to abolish slavery, which he openly detests, teaching the populace to read, and improving their international relations by helping arrange a marriage for the king with a foreign princess. He lives many years with his new family and eventually, following his wife’s death, considers returning to England.

A relay of flyers seeks to return him, but a ship fires on them as strange objects in the sky, causing them to drop Wilkins into the sea, where he is rescued and can tell of his quest.

Feminist critics would find of interest Paltock’s depiction of women as intelligent, self-sufficient beings, while New Historicist critics would notice Paltock’s pre-Victorian anti-slavery attitude and his fashioning of the slave Glanlapze as brave, loyal, and resourceful. The book remains available in print form.

Bibliography
Hugh, David. “Guest Reviews: The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins.” Lost Books. Available online. URL: http://www.lostbooks.org/guestreviews/2002-04-01-2.html. Downloaded on September 10, 2024.

Categories: British Literature, Literature, Novel Analysis

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