| After a terrible hurricane levels their Jam aican estate, the Bas-Thorntons decide to send their children back to the safety and comfort of England. On the way their ship is set upon by pirates, and the children are accidentally transferred to the pirate vessel. Jonsen, the well-meaning pirate c aptain, doesn't know how to dispose of his new cargo, while the children adjust with surprising ease to their new life. As this strange company drifts around the Caribbean, events turn more frightening, and the pirates find themselves increasing ly incriminated by the children's fates. The most shocking betrayal, however, will o nly take place after the return to civilization. The swift, almost hallucinatory action of Hughes's novel, together with its provocat ive insight into the psychology of children, made it a bestseller when it was first published in 1929 and have since established it as a classic of twentieth-century li terature--an unequalled exploration of the nature, and limits, of innocence. One of the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels of the Twentieth Century |
