Ordeal

by Nevil Shute

Overview

Nevil Shute wrote this prophetic novel just before the start of the Second World War. In it he imagines the devastation that results from an aerial bomb attack on Southampton that destroys the city's infrastructure and leaves the inhabitants at the mercy of cholera and further assaults. Against this dramatic backdrop, Shute grippingly chronicles the trials and tribulations of the Corbett family as they struggle to get to safety.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307474193
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/10/2010
Series:	Vintage International
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	300
Sales rank:	607,831
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Nevil Shute Norway was born in 1899 in Ealing, London. He studied Engineering Science at Balliol College, Oxford. Following his childhood passion, he entered the fledgling aircraft industry as an aeronautical engineer working to develop airships and, later, airplanes. In his spare time he began writing and he published his first novel, Marazan, in 1926, using the name Nevil Shute to protect his engineering career. In 1931 he married Frances Mary Heaton and they had 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 in 1960. His most celebrated novels include Pied Piper (1942), A Town Like Alice (1950), and On the Beach (1957).