[NOTE: Unlike some of the reviews mixed in on this page, this review refers to the Valancourt scholarly edition.]
Henry de Vere Stacpoole (1863-1951) was a prolific Irish writer of novels, children's works, and non-fiction writing over ninety books during his lifetime. Today he is most known for his thirteenth book, The Blue Lagoon (1908; the Valancourt scholarly edition is edited by Adrienne E. Gavin), which has been filmed three times (most notably in 1980 with Christopher Atkins and Brooke Shields). Ironically, given the age of the novel, in some ways its appeal is as great today as ever--a type of utopian novel where innocence finds itself able to grow and develop without bias, corruption, and societal norms in an idyllic, isolated island setting. In her Introduction to the Valancourt edition of The Blue Lagoon Adrienne E. Gavin states, "although it has not remained regularly in print, Stacpoole's story has never completely disappeared. Often at periods when the world has gone through hard times, it re-emerges to offer something to new audiences who crave escape to a simpler, easier, more natural life." She concludes her Introduction by stating that The Blue Lagoon has appeal today "when escape from an oil and technology-driven world of stress, noise, terrorism, environmental crisis, and credit-crunching recession seems more desirable than ever."
Bostonian Arthur Lestrange, suffering from consumption and near the end of his life, is on a sea voyage aboard the Northumberland "bound for San Francisco" with his eight-year-old son and niece, both of whom he has been in charge since the deaths of Emmeline's parents and Dick's mother. He has done his best to protect the children and their innocence: He goes as far as to ask Captain Le Farge that if he, Arthur, should die during the voyage to cast his body into the sea and only tell the children "I've gone on board another ship... children soon forget."
A fire at sea leads to abandoning the Northumberland and through circumstances due to the ensuing panic and chaos, young Emmeline and Dick find themselves alone in a dingy with a single sailor, Paddy Button. A dense fog separates the trio from the other boats, passengers, and crew and they are left adrift until they reach an uninhabited, isolated island in the Pacific. Raised living a sheltered life, being alone on the island with Paddy does little to increase their knowledge and awareness of the world. Paddy is quite uneducated, does not value "book learning," and carries with him a myriad of stories from his Irish ancestry filled with superstition and belief in leprechauns, "the Good People." He is knowledgeable enough to not only aid the survival of the three of them on the island for two years, but to leave the children with a lasting legacy of survival skills. Thus, the two children continue their existence of ignorance and to a large degree, bliss and freedom from society's biases and traditions.
Stacpoole's island is, for the most part, an island paradise. There are no hostile natives or predatory animals on land, and it is "a climate of eternal summer." There is food and water aplenty--from the streams flowing with fresh water to the plentiful fruits and vegetables growing on the island and a great variety of fish in the lagoon. Thus, Emmeline and Dick find themselves unknowingly in a new Garden of Eden. Once Stacpoole removes Paddy from the scene (which does not happen until past the novel's half-way mark), the two youths also take on the roles of a new Adam and Eve.
Throughout The Blue Lagoon, Stacpoole clearly draws from his life experiences before becoming a writer when he "travelled extensively in the Pacific and elsewhere including at least one voyage as a ship's doctor on a cable-laying ship" (Gavin). He provides readers with vivid descriptions both while the characters are at sea and on the island and enlivens his sailors' speeches with rich, often Irish, dialect. At the same time he keeps his tale moving at rapid clip with sails fully filled with fast moving breezes. In Book II, once the children are alone, the author fast forwards five years.
For years Emmeline and Dick deal in their own unique manner with the mysteries of life including death, sex, and even the birth of their child in the most simplistic of fashions. They accept and deal with the indifference of nature be it raging storms or deadly creatures that roam the seas in which the two venture in search of food. They are successful survivors--perhaps too successful to be realistic. Stacpoole really doesn't introduce any real threats to the existence and close calls to his two characters until a considerable portion of the novel has passed. Stacpoole does, however, give readers some breath-taking scenes of danger and, on occasion, also reveals the inner thoughts, confusion, and fear of his two young protagonists.
The Blue Lagoon concludes somewhat abruptly and with a sort of ambiguous ending which some readers may find irritating while others are bound to find quite fitting. For those desiring more closure, Stacpoole did later write two sequels to the novel. The Garden of God appeared in 1923 and The Gates of Morning in 1925. [In addition to the Introduction the Valancourt edition contains sixteen pages of notes defining maritime, nautical, and various historical and geographic references used by Stacpoole with which readers may not be familiar and Gavin also provides readers with Notes to the Introduction, a list of suggested further reading, and a six page life "Chronology of Henry de Vere Stacpoole." (Readers are warned not to read Gavin's Introduction until after they have completed the novel as there are a number of "plot spoilers" in the Introduction.)]
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