ABSTRACT
The only recorded work of fiction from the pen of an otherwise undistinguished lawyer of Cornish heritage, Robert Paltock, is The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins. In the course of its considerable length, Peter Wilkins shifts from being a picaresque romance to an impressively lifelike narrative of travel in exotic climes, a thrilling shipwreck story, and finally a densely detailed account of a wondrous civilization located in a distant corner of the Earth's surface, complete with descriptions of its marvelous inhabitants, customs, and history. The object of Wilkins's affections, a companion worlds apart from Crusoe's Man Friday, is the enchanting Youwarkee. If Wilkins has hitherto perceived the radical Otherness of Sass Doorpt Swangeanti in its curious flora and fauna, the unearthly vision of a female humanoid whose nubile body has an enclosed set of membranous wings is the final confirmation that he is a visitor in a place totally unlike any other on the planet.
