Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins

Author: Robert Paltock

A reviewer at the time described this novel as "the illegitimate offspring" of Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe, which is a reasonable if not exactly precise description of the book, because it misses out the fact that this is also a hollow Earth story and a utopia. Peter Wilkins is a fairly typical hard-done-by hero of 18th century fiction who undergoes various vicissitudes before being shipwrecked on a barren rock in the South Atlantic. There he lives a Robinson Crusoe existence until a flying woman, Youwarkee, crashes into his hut. In time, the two marry (for the 18th century, there's a lot of sex in this novel) and have several children before Youwarkee convinces him to come and visit her land. He is borne there on a chair carried by eight of these flying people know as Glumms and Gawrys. Their land us underground at the South Pole, where he finds a liberal, utopian society, though one that isn't technologically advanced, so he is able to bring a host of innovations that give him great power, enabling him to put down a rebellion and impose the true religion. Why it's on the list: We don't know much about Robert Paltrock (he doesn't even have an entry in the Science Fiction Encyclopedia) and this appears to be his only novel. Nevertheless it is perhaps the most significant work of science fiction to appear in Britain between Gulliver's Travels and Frankenstein..