The Blue Lagoon & The Garden of God

by Henry de Vere Stacpoole

The story centers on two cousins, Dicky and Emmeline Lestrange, who are marooned with a galley cook on an island in the South Pacific following a shipwreck. The galley cook, Paddy Button, assumes responsibility for the children and teaches them how to survive. Two-and-a-half years after the shipwreck, Paddy died following a drinking binge. The children survive on their resourcefulness and the bounty of their remote paradise. They live in a hut and spend their days fishing, swimming, diving for pearls and exploring the island. As the years pass, Dicky and Emmeline grow into physically mature young adults and begin to fall in love. As they deal with their newfound emotions, Dicky's father Arthur believes the two are still alive and he is determined to find them."The Garden of God" is a sequel to The Blue Lagoon and it picks up precisely where it left off, with Arthur Lestrange in the ship Raratonga discovering his son Dicky and niece Emmeline with their own child, lying in their fishing boat which has drifted out to sea. It turns out that Dicky and Emmeline died and the child is drowsy but alive and is picked up by the sailors. Arthur has a dream-vision of the pair; they ask him to come to Palm Tree, the island where they lived, and promise he will see them again. Arthur takes the child, which gets the nickname Dick M, and takes his ship to Palm Tree, where he plans to stay with Dick M and Kearney, a volunteer from the crew who grows fond of Dick. The rest of the crew leave with a promise to return the next year, but they get swallowed up in a storm out at sea, and the trio stays stuck on the island.

434 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1923

About the author

Henry De Vere Stacpoole (9 April 1863 – 12 April 1951), pseudonym: Tyler De Saix, was an Irish author, born in Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire). His best known work is the 1908 romance novel The Blue Lagoon, which has been adapted into feature films on three occasions.

A ship's doctor for more than forty years, Stacpoole was also an expert on the South Pacific islands. His books frequently contained detailed descriptions of the natural life and civilizations with which he had become familiar on those islands.

He moved to the Isle of Wight in the 1920s and lived there until his death. He was buried at Bonchurch in 1951. [Wikipedia]