In Hazard

WithIn Hazard,a thrilling tale of disaster on the high seas, NYRB Classics is proud to bring back into print all four novels by Richard Hughes, one of the masters of twentieth-century fiction. Richard Hughes's first novel,A High Wind in Jamaicaone of the Modern Library's one hundred best novels of the centurydescribes a family of children taken captive by pirates, and shows that what happens on their adventure is no more tumultuous and primal than their own inner natures.In Hazardmoves from the world of childhood into that of adulthood and continues Hughes's exploration of human nature in extremis. TheArchimedesis a steamship that is as shipshape as human ingenuity can make it, but all its modern technology isn't enough to save it when an unbelievably savage storm strikes. In fact, when machines fail technology turns out to be a pact with the devil: the result is a ship you can't row with mere manpower; a rudder too heavy to move; no way for a carpenter to rig up a mast. All that remains is the human spirit. Hero and coward, master and servant aren't always what they seem to be as the life-or-death struggle reveals what lies within their souls and tightens or unravels the bonds between them. As well asIn HazardandA High Wind in Jamaica,the two novels that comprise Hughes's unfinished trilogy, the Human PredicamentThe Fox in the AtticandThe Wooden Shepherdessare also available from NYRB Classics.

Richard Hughes (1900—1976) attended Oxford and lived for most of his life in a castle in Wales. His books include The Fox in the Attic, The Wooden Shepherdess, and A High Wind in Jamaica. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and, in the United States, an honorary member of both the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1946.

John Crowley is the author of many critically acclaimed books, including Love & Sleep, Aegypt, and Little, Big. He lives in northern Massachusetts with his wife and twin daughters.