Austin Tappan Wright left the world a wholly unsuspected legacy. After he died in a tragic accident, among this distinguished legal scholar's papers were found thousands of pages devoted to a staggering feat of literary creation - a detailed history of an imagined country complete with geography, genealogy, literature, language and culture. In a monumental labour of love, Wright's wife and daughter culled from this material a dazzling thousand-page novel. As detailed as J.R.R. Tolkien's middle-earth novels, "Islandia" has similarly become a classic touchstone for those concerned with the creation of imaginary worlds. Islandia occupies the southern portion of the Karain Continent, which lies in the Southern Hemisphere. Its civilization is an ancient one, protected from outside intervention by a natural fortress of towering mountains. To this isolated country - this alien, compelling and totally fascinating world - comes John Lang, the American consul.
As readers come to know this magnetic land, its unique people and its strange customs, they may find themselves wishing that they, like Lang, might be permitted, at the book's end, to return once more and spend the rest of their days in Islandia.