ABSTRACT
For thirty years I have been the willing captive and admirer of one book in particular. It was on a gray and rainy day in the spring of 1942 that I was browsing along the shelves of a lending library in a little Pennsylvania college town. One book seemed almost to push its way to attention as I glanced from title to title. Bound in a pleasant, heavy, white cloth, its title stood out obviously on its spine: Islandia. I took it home with me for a long weekend, and spent that entire weekend in a kind of daze of wonder as I read the book entirely through, and then went back to reread dozens of its passages. I have continued to reread Islandia at least once a year since that day of discovery. I have suggested it to a larger and larger circle of friends; have loaned my battered early copies dozens and dozens of times; have purchased used copies to give to friends; have gathered copies of each succeeding edition for myself, along with a great many copies of reviews and various other associated items. In all of the years of enjoying this single work, it is no exaggeration to say that on each rereading I have never failed to find something new, something which somehow had escaped me in earlier readings. There have been innumerable discoveries and rediscoveries of passages of special beauty, of wonder or miraculous perception. This continuing renewal of excitement over Islandia makes it difficult for me to write what I actually feel about this book, for somehow there is the feeling that my personal involvement with the work has become too personal and ought, in fact, to be kept to myself. Yet the urge to share this unusual and, indeed, classical volume with others is undeniable.
