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Richard Hughes's celebrated short novel is a masterpiece of concentrated narrative. Its dreamlike action begins among the decayed plantation houses and overwhelming natural abundance of late nineteenth-century Jamaica, before moving out onto the high seas, as Hughes tells the... Read Full Overview

Originally published: The innocent voyage. Boston: Harper, 1929.

The idea for the novel came in 1925, when a family friend introduced Hughes to an unpublished manuscript by one Jeanette Calder. This was a record of her personal experiences in 1822, off the coast of Cuba, as one of a group of children on a brig captured by pirates. Hughes... Read Full Overview

"A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes is like those books you used to read under the covers with a flashlight, only infinitely more delicious and macabre." --Andrew Sean Greer, All Things Considered

A High Wind in Jamaica, first published as The Innocent Voyage in 1929, is a classic coming-of-age novel. The story centers on the five children of the Bas-Thornton family, living on a plantation in late nineteenth-century Jamaica. Following a devastating... Read Full Overview

"Republished 1978 by special arrangement"--T.p. verso.

On the high seas of the Caribbean, a family of English children is set loose - sent by their parents from their home in Jamaica to receive the civilising effects of England. When their ship is captured by pirates, the thrilling cruise continues as the children transfer their... Read Full Overview

2025 Reprint of the 1929 Edition. A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

"A masterpiece of 20th-century literature." - Graham Greene

Set against the lush, untamed beauty of 19th-century Jamaica, A High Wind... Read Full Overview