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Big Bill's Nevil Shute Stuff!
He wrote "On the Beach" and "A Town Like Alice" don't you know!
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Nevil Shute had three consuming loves in his life other than his family. In chronological order, they were his aeronautical career, Australia, and his books. But in order of affection, Australia probably came first, and it is a toss up between the other two for second place. Unfortunately, Nevil Shute never wrote an autobiography of his literary life, and he has had no biographer, so we are left tantalisingly in doubt. His publisher suspects that Australia had a great effect upon Shute’s emotions, and this is evidenced by his setting so many of his novels in that vast country. Even the rough hostility of the flooding rainy season in Queensland (in his novel "In The Wet") still leaves a sense of affection for the country.
1986 marks the Diamond Jubilee of the publication of Nevil Shute’s first novel, "Marazan", published by Cassell in 1926. Many years later nearly every one of Nevil Shute’s twenty-two novels is still in print, stunning testimony to his nationwide popularity; and each of these novels, plus his autobiography of his early life as an engineer, has appeared as a Pan paperback.
AIRCRAFT
"Marazan" itself had an intriguing beginning. Nevil Shute was working in the aircraft industry at the time, on the construction of His Majesty’s Airship ‘R100’, and he devoted eighteen months of his evenings to the drudgery of writing the novel; all of it twice, and some of it three times. Eventually he sent the completed manuscript to the renowned Norman Flower of Cassell, who was impressed with the work and sent for the author to discuss it.
The young Nevil Shute, still in his early twenties, was surprised when Flower explained that Cassell didn’t print the word "bloody", and Nevil Shute readily agreed that all such references should be changed to "ruddy". Later, Nevil Shute felt emboldened to suggest numerous detailed alterations to the proposed agreement with Cassell so much so that Norman Flower returned the manuscript and withdrew his offer to publish.
A somewhat abashed Nevil Shute sought out a university friend at A.P. Watt, the respected literary agent. They were acting at the time for Conan Doyle, Kipling and Edgar Wallace and it was they who persuaded Cassell to reconsider and publish the novel.
The result was not a success. No one, including Nevil Shute, expected much of it, and by the time the novel went out of print, it had just about covered the author’s £30 advance on royalties. The book then stayed out of print for twenty-six years. When it was finally reissued as a cheap edition, it made £432 in royalties in the first six months.
Nevil Shute's adoption of his pseudonym also dates from the publication of "Marazan". At the time he was enjoying a fairly important job with Vickers, the aircraft company, and he judged that they might take exception to one of their employees indulging in fanciful novel-writing. So he adopted a nom-de-plume by simply omitting his true surname, Norway.
Nevil Shute Norway was born on 17 January 1899, to comfortably-off parents, and he enjoyed an impeccable schooling and upbringing. Dragon School, Oxford, was a fine preparation for Shrewsbury School, followed by a spell at the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich. Service at the end of the war as a private in the Suffolk Regiment was followed by three years at Balliol College. Oxford, and he came down with a creditable BA in 1922. He promptly celebrated this with a six-month holiday in Italy.
At the beginning, Nevil Shute embarked on an aeronautical career as a calculator with the de Haviland Aircraft Co. Ltd. The itch to write was already upon him: perhaps Italy stimulated the poetical side of his writing ability, for he toyed with poetry for a while, but he found it too demanding.
“A piece of writing is like a camera,” he once recalled, “the smaller it is the more carefully it has to be made. In a novel a few awkward phrases can get lost in the crowd.”
Nevil Shute became absorbed by his aviation career. He learnt to fly just after joining de Havilands, and passed his tests for the Royal Aero Club’s certificate.
By now he was spending his evenings writing. A first novel was completed and sent out to publishers. It never found a taker. A second followed in 1924 and, like the first, it became consigned to the shell. The third attempt was “Marazan”. It was to set him on the road to over thirty years of authorship, and he finally became one of the world’s most widely read novelists.
SoonNevil Shute was chief calculator with the Airship Guarantee Co., working on the construction of the rigid airship ‘Rl00’. He worked for some time under (Sir) Barnes Wallis, the designer of the airship, and later inventor of the ‘bouncing bombs’ which destroyed the Moehne and Eder dams in World War Two.Nevil Shute rose to deputy chief engineer in 1928 and in 1930 twice flew the Atlantic in ‘Rl00’, representing the contractors. But the crash of her sister airship, ‘Rl01’, in 1930 on her way to India marked the end of all airship endeavours in England. At the same time, Shute was managing director of the Yorkshire Aeroplane Club: he then founded Airspeed Ltd., an aeroplane construction company which he ran for the rest of the 1930s.
REWARD
The poor financial reward for his first novel did not disconcert the young writer; indeed, publication seemed to inspire him and he embarked on his second novel enthusiastically. Like so many of its successors, it had a flying flavour. “So Disdained” was published in 1928; later in the year it appeared in the U.S.A. under the title “The Mysterious Aviator”.Nevil Shute once recalled that titles were a constant source of debate and argument with his publishers, and in fact five of his novels received new titles when published in the States.
Only three more novels were published during the 1930s, a decade of intensive hard work when the flourishing aircraft industry claimedNevil Shute’s time and energies. “Lonely Road” (1932) was important toNevil Shute for two reasons: a new U.S. publisher, and a film. A.P. Watt managed to persuade William Morrow & Co. of New York to publish the novel, and so began a harmonious and profitable relationship with this prestigious publishing house.
It was a few years later, in 1936, that Watt managed to sell the film rights of “Lonely Road” to Ealing Studios.Nevil Shute has revealed that in writing the book he had envisaged the central character as Clive Brook, the urbane, handsome screen idol of the time. On publication of the book, Shute had sent a copy to the film star, and four years later, the film materialised, with Brook and Victoria Hopper in the starring roles.Nevil Shute mentioned that it never made him much money, hut it was great fun.
Shute's father would have been proud of him. He too had claims to literary accomplishment, with the publication of a book, “The History of the Post Office Packet Service”, an account of the traffic between Falmouth and New York.Nevil Shute’s mother also found a publisher for a slim volume of letters on a political theme: “The Sinn Fein Rebellion As I Saw It”.
1938 saw the publication by Cassell of ‘Ruined City’but the American edition by William Morrow appeared with the title ‘Kindling’. The publishers were very excited by the book, and it is recorded that the film rights were sold, but I cannot trace the film ever having been made.
In the following year, the year of the outbreak of World War Two, “What Happened To The Corbetts?” was published, but again there was trouble with the title and the U.S. edition was changed perhaps for the better, in this case to “Ordeal”. It was selected as the Book of the Month by a book club, but what is more intriguing is the fact that when Shute wrote it he was eighteen months ahead of events, in relating the story of a family bombed out in Southampton and living on a houseboat.
All of these 1930s novels are an essential part of a Nevil Shute collection. They need their dust-wrappers and they should be British first editions in VG condition or better. Remember that they were published in great quantity, so there is no great scarcity value, except in the case of “Marazan”. This is certainly the rarest of these titles.
The onset of war brought changes to most people’s lives,Nevil Shute’s included. He had already given up his engineering enterprise - it had grown to a company employing 1035 people - and he put his yachting interests to more useful and positive war use as an officer in the RNVR. By 1941 he was a Lieutenant-Commander, and at the war’s end in 1945 he ‘retired’ at the early age of 46 to devote more time to his writing interests.
His ability to write novels continued undiminished despite his wartime duties, and increasingly he gained a following of admirers who read each new book avidly. He began to enjoy the reputation of being a storyteller of some worth. His books were not long or complex, their storylines were easy to absorb, but they made compulsive reading, as is shown in the sheer number of reprints published through the years.
“An Old Captivity” (l94O) fared well enough, but it was to be another ten years before it became a best-seller. Later in that same year Heinemann published “Landfall”, a novel which highlighted Shute’s technical knowledge. Whenever aviation entered into his stories, his facts were, of course. unquestionable. and lent reality to the novels. “Landfall”, subtitled “A Channel Story”. was published in the L.S.A. in the same year. The book was made into a film in 1949, and no doubt this brought about a resurgence of interest in the novel. It was reprinted twice in 1940, twice more in 1941, then once each year from 1949 to 1961 (with a couple of exceptions) with later editions appearing in 1964, 1967, 1971 and 1979.
Nor is this printing history exceptional. “Pied Piper” was published in 1942 both in the U.K. and in New York, and over the next sixteen years it was reprinted sixteen times, before being reset and then reprinted three more times. It was with the publication of “Pied Piper” that Nevil Shute made his name as a novelist and as a best-selling author : a status he was to enjoy until the end of his days, and which even continued after his death. His nights of drudgery writing his first novels were now paying off handsomely.
WARTIME
“Pied Piper” tells the wartime story of an elderly man who has no special affection for children, finding himself smuggling them out of France : a moving, warm-hearted story told by a warm-hearted author. Hollywood made the book into a successful film, casting the irascible Monty Woolley as the sentimental old man, with Anne Baxter and Roddy McDowall providing the youth interest.
After “Pied Piper” there came “Pastoral” (1944) and “Most Secret” (1945), both of them with impressive reprinting histories. Then, as if taking a breather from writing best-sellers,Nevil Shute wrote a screen-play entitled “Vinland the Good” (1946). It was the only one he ever attempted. Apart from his one volume of autobiography, this “Vinland” scenario was his only departure from novel-writing. It is not one of his most popular works, but its relative scarcity value makes it a collector’s item.
“The Chequerboard” (1947), yet another enthralling story. was followed the next year by what many critics regard as one ofNevil Shute’s best stories “No Highway” (1948). It was made into a major film in 1951 with a glittering cast of stars: James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Glynis Johns, Jack Hawkins and Kenneth More. The U.S. title, incidentally, was “No Highway in the Sky”. It told (prophetically) of a science boffin calculating that during a transatlantic flight, the tail plane would break away due to metal fatigue. This predates the loss of the Comet airliner when metal fatigue first hit the newspaper headlines in the 195Os.
By nowNevil Shute had embarked on the great love affair of his life: Australia. In 1948 he had visited the country for two months, and was so impressed by the experience that he took the radical decision to uproot himself, his wife and two daughters, and to emigrate to Melbourne, where he bought a substantial farm. He ran this with engineer-like precision and perfection. “The cattle and pigs”, a friend recalled, “always looked as if they’d just been washed.”
His love of Australia permeates “A Town Like Alice” (1950), which was probably the biggest success of allNevil Shute’s books. Everyone, surely, through TV repeats, must know the harrowing war story of life among women prisoners of the Japanese in Malaya, of one woman’s reunion with her Australian lover, and their eventual settling in Alice Springs.
The book sold in huge numbers both here and in the States where it was titled “The Legacy”. Book clubs issued it and it also became a film. Virginia McKenna starred as the English woman prisoner, Peter Finch as her Australian lover, and a long list of supporting stars helped make the film a great box-office success.
“Round The Bend” (1951) was another novel with an aviation theme, centred on the Persian Gulf. By now Heinemann were producingNevil Shute’s novels with a distinctive blind panel and the intertwined initials ‘NS’ on the lower right corner of the top board. The first edition has red cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering on the spine.
Best-sellers were coming off theNevil Shute production line at the rate of one a year from “The Far Country” (1952) right through to “The Rainbow and the Rose”(1958).
In 1955, “Requiem for a Wren”: (the U.S. title was “The Breaking Wave” U.S. women sailors were called Waves, not Wrens) brought to the public a story whose heroine was dead at the beginning of chapter one. It is a haunting story, yet somehow it seems inadequate: one senses it could have been twice the length and the heroine should have lived!
Nevil Shute chose a specially dramatic plot for “On The Beach” (1957). which bears the stamp of an author like Hammond Innes, whereas some of his earlier works have been compared with the novels of HE. Bates. “On The Beach” is a terrifying book about the end of the world.Nevil Shute brings to it all the realism of his skilfully muted and restrained literary style. making the story wholly believable. Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins made a solid, prestige job of the film, directed by Stanley Kramer in 1959.
When, according to the book, most of the world has been devastated by atomic fallout, a U.S. atomic submarine sets out to investigate, and a new dimension is given to the old image of a cowboy riding slowly into the westering sun: the atomic submarine sailed into the blue yonder to eternity.
Shute made the end of the world so terribly plausible.
Shute’s last two novels were both published posthumously. “Trustee from the Toolroom” (1960)) contrasts dramatically with his prophesy of doom in “On The Beach”. This splendid story makes this novel one of his happiest. It tells of an engineer who becomes trustee of his ten-year-old niece and of a wild quest which leads to the Pacific and America.
“Stephen Morris” (1961) wasNevil Shute’s last novel, published after his death the previous year. It was his twenty-first novel, and it brought to an end a life of two quite separate sections. The first was his engineering life, captured in his one non-fiction book appropriately titled “Slide Rule” and subtitled “The Autobiography of an Engineer” (1954).Nevil Shute finished the book with a quotation which demonstrates his affection for the aviation industry: “So ends a chapter in my life”, he reflected. “Once man has spent time in messing about with aeroplanes, he can never forget their heartaches and their joys, nor is he likely to find another occupation that will satisfy him so well, even writing novels”.
STATEMENT
Had he written the second chapter of his life, I think he would have reviewed that statement. His publisher told me that todayNevil Shute’s popularity with his readers still continues, and sales of his books testify to his great story-telling ability.
Heinemann published an Omnibus Edition ofNevil Shute’s works with three titles:“No Highway”, “A Town Like Alice” and “On The Beach”. It was published in 1953 and reprinted in l977, and the first edition is worth collecting.
Another three-decker came in 1962, with “Three of a Kind” marrying together “Requiem for a Wren”, “An Old Captivity” and “Pastoral”. It was reprinted in 1973 and again six years later, further testimony to the sheer readability ofNevil Shute’s novels.
One of the fundamentals of collecting books is to select an author or subject that one enjoys.Nevil Shute meets this requirement for many collectors. One is assured of a good read as well as the pleasure of possessing collectable first editions.
UK BIBLIOGRAPHY
Novels
Autobiography
Collections
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U.K. TALKING BOOKS
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USA TALKING BOOKS
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This article has been adapted from one originally authored by one David A. Thomas which appeared in the December 1986 edition of Book and Magazine Collector Magazine.
Philip K Dick Isaac Asimov Edith Wharton Angela Brazil John Fowles Robert Heinlein Raymond Chandler John D MacDonald Wilfred Thesiger Sylvia Townsend Warner Elizabeth Jane Howard Hugh Walpole Nevil Shute Vita Sackville-West Extreme-Positioning