Book description
Through a series of mishaps, Henry Warren, a recently divorced City
financier, ends up in hospital in a Northern town ruined by the closure
of its shipyard. Moved by the fate of the town's inhabitants, Warren
risks his fortune and reputation to save the shipyard and restore the
town to its former prosperity. In seeking to change the fate of the
town, he radically changes his own. Nevil Shute Norway was born on 17
January 1899 in Ealing, London. After attending the Dragon School and
Shrewsbury School, he studied Engineering Science at Balliol College,
Oxford. He worked as an aeronautical engineer and published his first
novel,
Marazan
, in 1926. In 1931 he married Frances Mary Heaton and they went on to
have two daughters. During the Second World War he joined the Royal Navy
Volunteer Reserve where he worked on developing secret weapons. After
the war he continued to write and settled in Australia where he lived
until his death on 12 January 1960. His most celebrated novels
include Pied Piper
(1942), No Highway
(1948), A Town Like Alice
(1950) and On the Beach
(1957).
