Description
Book SynopsisHenry Neville (16201694), writes David Womersley in his Introduction, was an experienced political actor who united a practitioners sense of possibility with literary flair and imagination as he struggled to achieve headway for his republican commitments in the deceptive waters of late Stuart monarchy. Educated at Oxford, Neville made an extended visit to Italy in 164344, where he formed long-standing connections in Florence and studied the institutions of republican Venice. In 1649 he entered the House of Commons with the support of Algernon Sidney (who was his second cousin). Over the next few years, Neville wrote pamphlets against the usurpation of the army and the threat of Cromwellian dictatorship, and as the Restoration approached, he was a leading member of James Harringtons Rota Club. In late 1667 or early 1668, after he had returned to England from a second trip to Italy, Neville wrote the first of the two works on which his reputation now rests. The Isle of Pines (1668) is
