The Garden of God

The Garden of God is a romance novel by Henry De Vere Stacpoole, first published in 1923. It is the first sequel to his best-selling novel The Blue Lagoon (1908), and continued with The Gates of Morning (1925). The Garden of God was adapted into the film Return to the Blue Lagoon.

The sequel picks up precisely where the first book 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. While the last line of The Blue Lagoon states that they are not dead but sleeping, the first line of the sequel is "No, they are dead", and the reader is told that they have stopped breathing. The child is drowsy but alive and is picked up by the sailors.

Arthur is shaken, but at the same time relieved. He can see that Dicky and Emmeline were healthy and that they must have lived in peace. He feels it is better that they died while still in a savage state and did not have to return to civilization. He 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.

Their child becomes quite popular with the Raratonga's crew. His favorite among the sailors is a rascally quasi-pirate called Jim Kearney. Because the child says "Dick" and "Em" while playing with the sailors, Kearney calls him Dick M.

Captain Stanistreet has been concerned for Arthur's sanity since they found Dicky and Emmeline, but he appears calm when they get to Palm Tree, investigating the things the couple left behind. Only when he enters the house and finds the flower decorations and neatly arranged supplies—unmistakably the work of Emmeline—does he break down in tears.

Read the complete novel for further story....