A High Wind in Jamaica

'Fear and fun are so close together in a child's mind.' Richard Hughes's first novel, A High Wind in Jamaica was a bestseller at the time of publication, and is famed for its 1965 film adaptation of the same name starring Anthony Quinn. Set in the late nineteenth century, A High Wind in Jamaica recounts the perilous fate of seven children, as they board a ship which soon becomes captured by pirates. The Bas-Thornton siblings, raised on a plantation in Jamaica, are sent home to England after a high wind obliterates their family house. But once the pirates seize their ship, the Captain flees the scene, abandoning the children to fend for themselves. As gripping as it is brutal, A High Wind in Jamaica is a poignant tale of survival, adventure and having to grow up long before one's own time. Richard Hughes (1900 – 1976) was a British novelist, short story writer, playwright and poet. Educated at Oxford, Hughes worked as a journalist, travelling extensively before he turned his attention to novel writing. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, his work is widely read to this day.