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A High Wind in Jamaica
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A High Wind in Jamaica Paperback - 1999

by Hughes, Richard

  • Used

Description

UsedGood. The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact (including the dust cover, if applicable). Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.
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Details

  • Title A High Wind in Jamaica
  • Author Hughes, Richard
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition [ Edition: Repri
  • Condition UsedGood
  • Pages 296
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher New York Review of Books, New York, New York, U.s.a.
  • Date 1999-09-30
  • Bookseller's Inventory # 4WILKM00KBKH
  • ISBN 9780940322158 / 0940322153
  • Weight 0.66 lbs (0.30 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.96 x 5.06 x 0.73 in (20.22 x 12.85 x 1.85 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 1851-1899
    • Cultural Region: Caribbean
    • Topical: Coming of Age
  • Library of Congress subjects Sea stories, Pirates - Fiction
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 99014565
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

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About this book

Richard Hughes’ A High Wind in Jamaica is the first of only three novels the author published in his lifetime. The novel tells the story of an English family, the Bas-Thorntons, living in late 19th century colonial Jamaica. When the “high wind” of a hurricane hits the island, Mr. and Mrs. Bas-Thornton decide to send their five children back to England ahead of their own return. From there, adventure ensues.

In following the experiences of the children almost exclusively, Hughes takes a highly original approach into the relationship of power between adults and children. Because of this, A High Wind in Jamaica has been referred to as one of the best book for adults about children. It is also ranked 71st on Modern Library’s “100 Best” English-language novels of the 20th century.

From the publisher

Richard Hughes (1900-1976) was born in Surrey, England, but his ancestors came from Wales and he considered himself a Welshman. After an early childhood marked by the deaths of two older siblings and his father (his mother then went to work as a magazine journalist), Hughes attended boarding school and, with every expectation of being sent to fight in the First World War, enrolled in the military. Armistice was declared, however, before he could see active service, and Hughes was free to go to Oxford, where he became a star on the university literary scene, with a book of poems in print and a play produced in the West End by the time he graduated in 1922. Hughes’s first novel, A High Wind in Jamaica, came out in 1928 and was a best seller in the United Kingdom and America. In Hazard followed ten years later. Hughes also wrote stories for children and radio plays, but his final major undertaking was the “The Human Predicament”, an ambitious amalgamation of fact and fiction that would track the German and English branches of a single family into the disaster of the Second World War while offering a dramatic depiction of Hitler’s rise to power. The work was planned as a trilogy, but remained incomplete at the time of Hughes’s death. The first volume, The Fox in the Attic, appeared in 1960, to great critical acclaim; volume two, The Wooden Shepherdess, was published in 1973. All of Hughes’s completed novels are available from NYRB Classics.

First Edition Identification

Chatto and Windus first published A High Wind in Jamaica in late 1929. Bound in green cloth, the 283-page first editions contain no additional printings listed on the copyright page.

Categories

Media reviews

"This brilliant, gorgeously written, highly entertaining, and apparently light-hearted idyll quickly reveals its true nature as a powerful and profoundly disquieting meditation on the meaning of loyalty and betrayal, innocence and corruption, truth and deception."— Francine Prose, Elle "During one snowy day, I read the whole book in one gulp. It was remarkable, tiny, crazy. I felt just like I did as a kid."— Andrew Sean Greer, All Things Considered, NPR "A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes is like those books you used to read under the covers with a flashlight, only infinitely more delicious and macabre."— Andrew Sean Greer, All Things Considered, NPR

“Cross a wacky seafaring adventure--Conrad gone awry via inept piracy--with an exploration of the consciousness of a child as radical and insightful as that provided by Henry James in What Maisie Knew, and you have A High Wind In Jamaica by Richard Hughes....By turns funny, ironic, and brutally sad, this is a complex and astonishing novel."—Sue Miller, Barnes and Noble Review

Citations

  • Entertainment Weekly, 08/09/2002, Page 68
  • New York Times, 12/19/1999, Page 36
  • Publishers Weekly, 08/09/1999, Page 346

About the author

Richard Hughes (1900-1976) was born in Surrey, England, but his ancestors came from Wales and he considered himself a Welshman. After an early childhood marked by the deaths of two older siblings and his father (his mother then went to work as a magazine journalist), Hughes attended boarding school and, with every expectation of being sent to fight in the First World War, enrolled in the military. Armistice was declared, however, before he could see active service, and Hughes was free to go to Oxford, where he became a star on the university literary scene, with a book of poems in print and a play produced in the West End by the time he graduated in 1922. Hughes's first novel, A High Wind in Jamaica, came out in 1928 and was a best seller in the United Kingdom and America. In Hazard followed ten years later. Hughes also wrote stories for children and radio plays, but his final major undertaking was the "The Human Predicament", an ambitious amalgamation of fact and fiction that would track the German and English branches of a single family into the disaster of the Second World War while offering a dramatic depiction of Hitler's rise to power. The work was planned as a trilogy, but remained incomplete at the time of Hughes's death. The first volume, The Fox in the Attic, appeared in 1960, to great critical acclaim; volume two, The Wooden Shepherdess, was published in 1973. All of Hughes's completed novels are available from NYRB Classics.

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