Return to Penis Island: Or, the surprising trajectories of early modern population thought (Part 3: Conclusion)

[Earlier episodes: Part 1; Part 2] As we’ve seen, there were a variety of lenses through which to read Neville’s novel, from travel account to political parable to biblical allegory to niche pornography. The Isle of Pines’s close attention to population registered differently depending on the lens. To readers who kept a weather eye on … Continue reading Return to Penis Island: Or, the surprising trajectories of early modern population thought (Part 3: Conclusion)

Interlude: Ask a Sesquecentenarian

Most people who wrote about population in the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries took the extreme longevity of the ancients -- some of them, anyway -- as a given. It was, after all, Scripture. There were debates about whether everyone before the Flood had lived for hundreds of years (969, in Methuselah's case), or just … Continue reading Interlude: Ask a Sesquecentenarian

Return to Penis Island: Or, the surprising trajectories of early modern population thought (Part 2)

[Earlier episode: Part 1] The Old Testament was familiar with the likes of George Pine: long-lived, polygamous survivors of disaster who founded new societies in bounteous and conveniently depopulated landscapes. In the Isle of Pines, for his part, Neville described a second Eden, “always clothed in green, and full of pleasant fruits, and variety of … Continue reading Return to Penis Island: Or, the surprising trajectories of early modern population thought (Part 2)