The Isle of Pines and Plato Redivivus, by Henry Neville (1620-1694), explore themes central to the classical republican tradition of seventeenth-century England. As David Womersley writes in his Introduction, "Neville was an experienced political actor who united a practitioner's 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.