Nevil Shute (London, January 17, 1899 – Melbourne, January 12, 1960) (full name Nevil Shute Norway) was one of the most popular novelists of the mid-20th century. His stories and characters have a genuine sweetness to them, which occasionally becomes cloying, but which helps explain why a half-century after his death, virtually all his books remain in print. London is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England and is the most populous city in the European Union. ... January 17 is the 17th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1899 (MDCCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Melbourne is the state capital and largest city in the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-largest city in Australia, with a population of approximately 3. ... January 12 is the 12th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1960 calendar). ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the...

Shute's works are generally adventure novels told in a low-key but engrossing style, often with an emphasis on technical areas. No Highway (1948), for example, builds drama around structure failure in an airplane design. Several of his novels also have a supernatural element, notably Round the Bend (1951), which concerns a new religion growing up around an airplane mechanic. One of Shute's best-known books was one of his last: On the Beach (1957), set in a world slowly dying from the effects of an atomic war. Its popularity is due in part to its adaptation into a film, which Shute despised because of the liberties taken with his characters. No Highway is a 1948 novel by Nevil Shute, later forming the basis of a 1951 motion picture. ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... Round the Bend was a 1951 novel by Nevil Shute. ... 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ... On the Beach is a post-apocalyptic end-of-the-world novel written by British author Nevil Shute after he had emigrated to Australia. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Biography

Born in Ealing, London, he was educated at the Dragon School, Shrewsbury School and Balliol College, Oxford. Shute served in World War I as a ground-based soldier. An aeronautical engineer as well as a pilot, he began his engineering career with De Havilland Aircraft Company, but being dissatisfied with the opportunities, took a position in 1924 with Vickers Ltd. where he was involved with the development of airships. Shute worked as Chief Calculator (stress engineer) on the R-100 Airship project, for the subsidiary Airship Guarantee Company. In 1929, he was promoted to Deputy Chief Engineer of the R100 project under Barnes Wallis. Ealing is a place in the London Borough of Ealing. ... London is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England and is the most populous city in the European Union. ... The Dragon School is a renowned British preparatory school in the city of Oxford, founded in 1877. ... Shrewsbury School (founded 1552) is a leading British Independent School (sometimes called Public School) located in Shrewsbury in the county of Shropshire. ... College name Balliol College Named after John de Balliol Established 1263 Sister College St Johns Master Andrew Graham JCR President Jack Hawkins Undergraduates 403 Graduates 228 Homepage Boatclub Balliol College, founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ... Combatants Allies: Serbia, Russia, France, Romania, Belgium, British Empire, United States, Italy, and others Central Powers: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Ottoman Empire Casualties Military dead: 5 million Civilian deaths: 3 million Total of dead: 8 million Military dead: 4 million Civilian deaths: 3 million Total dead: 7 million Spanish Flu... Aerospace engineering is the branch of engineering that concerns aircraft, spacecraft and related topics. ... Until 1920, Geoffrey de Havillands de Havilland Aircraft Company had been known as Airco, where he was owner and chief designer. ... Vickers Armstrong (Aircraft) company logo Vickers, founded as the Vickers Company in 1828, was a British manufacturer, primarily of military equipment, traditionally based in Barrow-in-Furness. ... USS Akron (ZRS-4) in flight, November 2, 1931 An airship is a buoyant aircraft that can be steered and propelled through the air. ... Sir Barnes Neville Wallis Sir Barnes Neville Wallis, CBE, FRS, RDI, commonly known as Barnes Wallis, (September 26, 1887 – October 30, 1979) was a British scientist, engineer and inventor. ...

The R100 was a prototype for passenger-carrying airships that would serve the needs of Britain's global empire. R100 was a modest success, but the fatal crash of its government-funded counterpart, R101, in 1930 ended Britain's interest in airships and the R100 was grounded and scrapped. He gives a detailed account of the episode in his 1954 autobiographical work, Slide Rule. Shute left Vickers shortly afterward, and in 1931 founded the aircraft construction company Airspeed Ltd. R100 moored in Saint-Hubert The HM Airship R100 was a rigid airship, the successful private counterpart to the British government R101 project, in a competition intended to maximize innovation. ... R100 moored in Saint-Hubert The HM Airship R100 was a rigid airship, the successful private counterpart to the British government R101 project, in a competition intended to maximize innovation. ... R101 at the mast at Cardington One of the Beardmore engines (sectioned for display) View from the air of the crash site. ... R100 moored in Saint-Hubert The HM Airship R100 was a rigid airship, the successful private counterpart to the British government R101 project, in a competition intended to maximize innovation. ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1931 calendar). ... This article describes the company Airspeed Ltd. ...

Shute was a cousin of the Irish-American actress Geraldine Fitzgerald. In 1931 he married Frances Mary Heaton. They had two daughters. By the outbreak of World War II Shute was already a rising novelist. He joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a sub-lieutenant in the Miscellaneous Weapons Department, where he experimented with secret weapons, a job that appealed to the engineer in him. His celebrity as a writer caused the Ministry of Information to send him to the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, and later to Burma as a correspondent. Irish population density in the United States, 1872. ... Geraldine Fitzgerald Geraldine Fitzgerald (24 November 1913 - 17 July 2005) was an Irish-American actress. ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1931 calendar). ... Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II... The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is the volunteer reserve force of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. ... Combatants Allied Powers Nazi Germany Commanders Dwight D. Eisenhower (Supreme Allied Commander) Bernard Montgomery (land) Bertram Ramsay (sea) Trafford Leigh-Mallory (air) Gerd von Rundstedt (OB WEST) Erwin Rommel (Heeresgruppe B) Strength 326,000 (by June 11) Unknown Casualties 53,700 dead, 18,000 missing, 155,000 wounded About 200... June 6 is the 157th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (158th in leap years), with 208 days remaining. ... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ...

After World War II, he went to live in Australia, decrying what he saw as a decline in his home country. Australia features in many of his later novels, including the well-known A Town Like Alice (1950). He had a brief career as a racing car driver in Australia between 1956 and 1958, driving a white XK140 Jaguar. Some of this experience found its way into his book On The Beach. Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II... A Town Like Alice is a novel by the English author Nevil Shute. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Jaguar Cars Limited is a British luxury car brand which is now owned by the Ford Motor Company. ... On the Beach is a post-apocalyptic end-of-the-world novel written by British author Nevil Shute after he had emigrated to Australia. ...

Many of his books were filmed, including Pied Piper, On the Beach (in 1959), No Highway (in 1951) and A Town Like Alice in 1956. The latter was also adapted for Australian television in 1981. Pied Piper is a novel by Nevil Shute, first published in 1942. ... On the Beach is a post-apocalyptic end-of-the-world novel written by British author Nevil Shute after he had emigrated to Australia. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... No Highway is a 1948 novel by Nevil Shute, later forming the basis of a 1951 motion picture. ... 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ... A Town Like Alice is a novel by the English author Nevil Shute. ... 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

He died in Melbourne in 1960. Melbourne is the state capital and largest city in the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-largest city in Australia, with a population of approximately 3. ... 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1960 calendar). ...

Style and themes

The narrative backbone of a Nevil Shute novel usually involves the planning and execution of a complex and worthwhile mission or quest. Shute's protagonists are often ordinary people who feel a sense of responsibility and an obligation to complete their difficult task. For example:

• An Old Captivity involves a pilot who is hired by an archaeologist to take aerial photographs of a site in Greenland. Nevil Shute takes us through the practical details: how the trip is budgeted, how the cost of the plane can be offset by the resale value at the end of the trip, how the pilot must plan for lodging and refuelling at remote locations, how he must learn to operate the aerial camera himself.

• The framing story of A Town Like Alice (U.S. title: The Legacy) is about business development. It opens in a solicitor's office, where a young woman who has just inherited money explains that she "wants to go back to Malaya and dig a well" (a quest). By the end of the book, she is operating a small shoe factory in an Australian outback town, then an ice cream parlor where the factory staff can spend their wages, then a cinema, and a few other things... and the economic development she has touched off is putting the previously dingy town of Willstown on track to become "a town like Alice."

• Trustee from the Toolroom concerns a machinist who makes a small but adequate income writing articles for model-making magazines. His wealthy relatives leave their daughter with him for a sailing trip, with a planned end in western Canada. Their boat is wrecked on a remote Polynesian atoll and no trace can be found of the legacy they should have left their daughter. He realizes that they must have converted their fortune to diamonds and smuggled them out of England (when the novel was written, it was illegal to transfer large amounts of capital out of the country). Since he helped his brother-in-law insert a sealed metal container in the concrete keel of the boat, he also knows where the valuables are probably located and also that he, personally, is at least partly responsible for the disappearance of the legacy. To discharge his obligation as trustee, he realizes that he must somehow personally travel to the wreckage site and recover the valuables, and do this secretly.

Shute's most famous novel, On the Beach, is one of his least characteristic, dark in tone and devoid of his usual optimism. It is set in Australia after a nuclear war has devastated the northern hemisphere, with air circulation patterns slowly bringing the fallout to the southern hemisphere. Ostensibly about nuclear war, it is really an examination of how people live and what they do with their lives when they have certain foreknowledge of their imminent mortality. A Town Like Alice is a novel by the English author Nevil Shute. ... The Legacy is the debut album of the band Testament. ... Alice Springs on a large scale map Alice Springs is a large town in the Northern Territory of Australia located at 23°42′ S 133°52′ E. Its population of 28,178 (2001 Census) makes it the second-largest settlement in the Territory (the only other towns of significant size... Trustee from the Toolroom is a 1960 novel by Nevil Shute published after his death in January of 1960. ... On the Beach is a post-apocalyptic end-of-the-world novel written by British author Nevil Shute after he had emigrated to Australia. ...

Shute's optimism is still present in a veiled form: he does not envision a violent breakdown in society, his characters do not riot, but try their best to cope with the inevitable and muddle with it—not "muddle through," as, in this case, that is impossible. The tone of the book is melancholic, not angry. Published in 1957, the book played a role in influencing public opinion in the U.S. toward support for the atmospheric test ban treaty. Motto: E pluribus unum (1789 to 1956) (Latin: Out of Many, One) In God We Trust (1956 to present) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington, D.C. Largest city New York City Official language(s) None at federal level; English de facto Government • President • Vice President Federal Republic George... The Treaty Banning poop, in Outer Space, and Under Water, often abbreviated as the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT), or Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT), although the former also refers to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), is a treaty intended to obtain an agreement...

Nevil Shute believed Round the Bend to be his best novel. It concerns a Western-educated, half Russian, half Asian, aircraft mechanic, who develops a religious belief about the moral imperative of performing good maintenance on the machines upon which others' lives depend. He talks with other mechanics and unintentionally becomes the leader of a religious movement. His employer (the point of view character) is inconvenienced by crowds of pilgrim, but comes to respect the movement. Round the Bend was a 1951 novel by Nevil Shute. ...

Belief in private enterprise

Nevil Shute's novels frequently present private enterprise as a source of moral good. In this respect, he is presenting an uncommon theme found, usually, only in American 1950's literature. Novels such as Ayn Rand's, 'Atlas Shrugged' or Cameron Hawley's 'Executive Suite' and 'Cash McCall' present the businessman as a value-creating hero who adds wealth to the human experience. Atlas Shrugged is a novel by Russian-born writer and philosopher Ayn Rand, first published in 1957 in the USA, and Rands last work of fiction before concentrating her writings exclusively on philosophy. ... Cameron Hawley (September 19, 1905 in Howard,SD, – 9 February 1969), was an American writer of fiction about the pressures of modern life particularly in a business setting. ... Executive Suite is a 1954 film starring William Holden, June Allyson, Barbara Stanwyck, Shelley Winters & Nina Foch. ...

A Town Like Alice presents a characteristic example. A young woman, who has been working as a secretary in a pleasant, but uninspiring, job, has just received a substantial legacy. She ponders on what she should do, now that she no longer actually needs to work. The following exchange flashes by almost as an aside:

I know of several charitable appeals who would have found a first-rate shortand-typist, unpaid, a perfect godsend, and I told her so. She was inclined to be critical about those. "Surely, if a thing is really worth while, it'll pay," she said. She evidently had quite a strong business instinct latent in her. "It wouldn't need to have an unpaid secretary."

"Charitable organizations like to keep the overheads down," I remarked.

"I shouldn't have thought organizations that haven't got enough margin to pay a secretary can possibly do very much good," she said.

This belief also carries Ruined City (1938; U.S. title: Kindling), about a wealthy and respected banker who lifts a shipbuilding town out of the depression by bringing a ship-building concern back to life through money, bribery and questionable financial dealings. His reputation is destroyed, and he goes to jail for fraud, but the shipyard is back in business and the town is saved. When he has served his term, he returns to the town and finds a bronze plaque on the shipyard gate with his head and shoulders embossed on it and the words The Ruined City, also called Ash Village, is a city on Legacy of Kain series. ... Kindling is material for starting a fire. ...

HENRY WARREN

1934

HE GAVE US WORK

Bibliography

• Stephen Morris (1923, published posthumously in 1961) ISBN 1842322974
• Marazan (1926) ISBN 1842322656
• So Disdained (1928) ISBN 184232294X
• Lonely Road (1932) ISBN 1842322613
• Ruined City (novel) (1938) (also published under the title Kindling) ISBN 1842322907
• What Happened to the Corbetts (1939) (also published under the title Ordeal) ISBN 1842323024
• An Old Captivity (1940) ISBN 1842322753
• Landfall: A Channel Story (1940) ISBN 1842322583
• Pied Piper (1942) ISBN 1842322788
• Most Secret (1942) ISBN 1842322699
• Pastoral (1944) ISBN 184232277X
• Vinland the Good (1946) ISBN 1889439118
• The Chequer Board (1947) ISBN 1842322486
• No Highway (1948) ISBN 1842322737
• A Town Like Alice (1950) (also published under the title The Legacy) ISBN 1842323008
• Round the Bend (1951) ISBN 1842322893
• The Far Country (1952 novel) (1952) ISBN 1842322516
• In the Wet (1953) ISBN 1842322540
• Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer (1950) ISBN 1842322915
• Requiem for a Wren (1955) ISBN 1842322869
• Beyond the Black Stump (1956) ISBN 184232246X
• On the Beach (1957) ISBN 1842322761
• The Rainbow and the Rose (1958) ISBN 1842322834
• Trustee from the Toolroom (1960) ISBN 1842323016

Lonely Road is the latest song from rapper Snacky Chan. ... Ruined City, sometimes published as Kindling, is a 1938 novel by Nevil Shute. ... What Happened to the Corbetts, a novel by Nevil Shute. ... Pied Piper is a novel by Nevil Shute, first published in 1942. ... Vinland the Good (ISBN 1889439118) is 1946 a novel by British author Nevil Shute. ... The Chequer Board is a novel by Nevil Shute, first published in the UK in 1947 by William Heinemann Ltd. ... No Highway is a 1948 novel by Nevil Shute, later forming the basis of a 1951 motion picture. ... A Town Like Alice is a novel by the English author Nevil Shute. ... Round the Bend was a 1951 novel by Nevil Shute. ... The Far Country is a novel by Nevil Shute, first published in 1952. ... In The Wet is a novel by Nevil Shute that was first published in the UK in 1953. ... On the Beach is a post-apocalyptic end-of-the-world novel written by British author Nevil Shute after he had emigrated to Australia. ... Trustee from the Toolroom is a 1960 novel by Nevil Shute published after his death in January of 1960. ...

External links

• The Nevil Shute Foundation
• Mr Norway – Norway's racing career and the filming of On the Beach
• A Brief Account of the Engineer and Novelist, Nevil Shute from ibooknet