Synopses & Reviews
On the evening of November 26, 1703, a hurricane from the north Atlantic hammered into Britain: it remains the worst storm the nation has ever experienced. Eyewitnesses saw cows thrown into trees and windmills ablaze from the friction of their whirling sails—and some 8,000 people lost their lives. For Defoe, bankrupt and just released from prison for his "seditious" writings, the storm struck during one of his bleakest moments. But it also furnished him with material for his first book, and in this powerful depiction of suffering and survival played out against a backdrop of natural devastation we can trace the outlines of Defoe’s later masterpieces, A Journal of the Plague Year and Robinson Crusoe.
Synopsis
On the evening of 26th November 1703, a cyclone from the north Atlantic hammered into southern Britain at over seventy miles an hour, claiming the lives of over 8,000 people. Eyewitnesses reported seeing cows left stranded in the branches of trees and windmills ablaze from the friction of their whirling sails. For Defoe, bankrupt and just released from prison for seditious writings, the storm struck during one of his bleakest moments.
But it also furnished him with the material for his first book, and in his powerful depiction of private suffering and individual survival played out against a backdrop of public calamity we can trace the outlines of his later masterpieces such as A Journal of the Plague Year and Robinson Crusoe.
About the Author
Daniel Defoe (16601731), though best remembered for his fiction, including the novels
Robinson Crusoe and
Moll Flanders, also wrote on economics, history, biography, and crime and is considered the founder of British journalism.
Richard Hamblyn is the author of Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.