Book description
Set in the last century against a tropical landscape and the
ever-present sea,
A High Wind in Jamaica
tells the story of a family of English children who, on being sent by
their parents back to England from Jamaica, fall into the hands of
pirates. As this voyage of innocence continues, the events which unfold
begin to take on a savagely detached and haunting quality. Richard
Hughes was born in 1900 and educated at Charterhouse School and Oriel
College, Oxford. A highly original and idiosyncratic writer, he wrote
poems and plays as well as novels, but it is for these that he is best
remembered, the most famous of which was his first, A High Wind in Jamaica
, published in 1929. A remarkable man, he could number Masefield, Yeats,
T. E. Lawrence, Robert Graves, Augustus John and Dylan Thomas amongst
his friends and acquaintances. Married to the painter Frances Bazley in
1932, he died in 1976.
