A Town Like Alice

Author: Nevil Shute
Homepage 9781509834815

Stock information

General Fields

  • : 20.00
  • : 9781509834815
  • : PAN MACMILLAN UK
  • : Macmillan Collector's Library
  • : 0.226
  • : January 2018
  • : 150mm X 93mm
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  • : 14.99
  • : February 2018
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  • : books

Special Fields

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  • : Nevil Shute
  • : Macmillan Collector's Library
  • : Hardback
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  • : English
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Barcode 9781509834815
9781509834815

Description

A Town Like Alice The Legacy by Nevil Shute Jean Paget is just twenty years old and working in Malaya when the Japanese invasion begins. When she is captured she joins a group of other European women and children whom the Japanese force to march for miles through the jungle - an experience that leads to the deaths of many. Due to her courageous spirit and ability to speak Malay, Jean takes on the role of leader of the sorry gaggle of prisoners and many end up owing their lives to her indomitable spirit. While on the march, the group run into some Australian prisoners, one of whom, Joe Harman, helps them steal some food, and is horrifically punished by the Japanese as a result. After the war, Jean tracks Joe down in Australia and together they begin to dream of surmounting the past and transforming his one-horse outback town into a thriving community like Alice Springs... We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

Promotion info

A gripping story of love and bravery set in Malaya, London and Australia. This Macmillan Collector's Library edition features an afterword by bestselling novelist Jenny Colgan.

Author description

Nevil Shute Norway was born in London in 1899. He graduated from Balliol College, Oxford with a degree in engineering in 1922 and began working as an aeronautical engineer. The first of his twenty-four novels, Marazan, was published in 1926 and these two very separate careers flourished in tandem until he ceased work in 1938 to write full-time. As a Naval Volunteer Reservist in the Second World War, Shute developed anti-submarine missiles and was sent to Normandy to chronicle the D-Day landings. In 1945 he emigrated to Australia with his wife and daughters and there wrote perhaps his most famous novels - A Town Like Alice (1950) and On the Beach (1957). He died in Melbourne in 1960.