Trustee from the Toolroom

A classic adventure from the author of A Town Like Alice and On the Beach.AS SEEN ON BBC TWO'S BETWEEN THE COVERS'An incredible adventure story...a book that will live with you forever' Richard Osman (on BBC Two's Between the Covers).Discover a classic adventure from the author of A Town Like Alice and On the Beach.Keith Stewart is an ordinary man. However, one day he is called upon to undertake an extraordinary task.When his sister's boat is wrecked in the Pacific, he becomes trustee for his little niece. In order to save her from destitution he has to embark on a 2,000 mile voyage in a small yacht in inhospitable waters. His adventures and the colourful characters he meets on his journey make this book a marvellous tale of courage and friendship.'Something about this author's calm, deliberate style creates unexpected excitement... we are warmed by the justice and sheer pleasure of it' Independent

Something about this author's calm, deliberate style creates unexpected excitement... we are warmed by the justice and sheer pleasure of it Independent
Nevil Shute made me yearn for a faithful, plodding, Shute-type of man. I imagined us trekking across the Australian outback, finding a run-down hamlet, and then transforming it together until death or flood parted us The Times

Nevil Shute was born on 17 January 1899 in Ealing, London. After attending the Dragon School and Shrewsbury School, he studied Engineering Science at Balliol College, Oxford. He worked as an aeronautical engineer and published his first novel, Marazan, in 1926. In 1931 he married Frances Mary Heaton and they went on to have two daughters. During the Second World War he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve where he worked on developing secret weapons. After the war he continued to write and settled in Australia where he lived until his death on 12 January 1960. His most celebrated novels include Pied Piper (1942), No Highway (1948), A Town Like Alice (1950) and On the Beach (1957).

'Something about this author's calm, deliberate style creates unexpected excitement... we are warmed by the justice and sheer pleasure of it' Independent Keith Stewart is an ordinary man. However, one day he is called upon to undertake an extraordinary task. When his sister's boat is wrecked in the Pacific, he becomes trustee for his little niece. In order to save her from destitution he has to embark on a 2,000 mile voyage in a small yacht in inhospitable waters. His adventures and the colourful characters he meets on his journey make this book a marvellous tale of courage and friendship. See Also: Most Secret

In 1622, Rubens designed his second tapestry series, The Story of Constantine, for which he executed twelve oil sketches, all of which are currently preserved in public and private collections in America and Europe. Tapestries produced after the lost cartoons, which were in turn painted after the oil sketches, were woven in the tapestry factories in the faubourgs of Saint Marcel and Saint Germain in Paris. Based on new archival research and a critical examination of the literature on the Constantine series, this book firmly embeds the genesis, and iconographical and stylistic features of the set in its specific artistic, manufactural, and commercial matrix, and thus develops the first truly inclusive approach to Rubens's Story of Constantine. Analysis of the entrepreneurial strategy of Marc Comans and Francois de la Planche, directors of the factory in the faubourg of Saint Marcel, the correspondence between Rubens and Peiresc, the provenance of the twelve oil sketches, and the iconographical programme reveals that the series was not commissioned by the French king Louis XIII, as has long been believed, but by Comans and de la Planche. A close reading of Rubens's primary literary source, Caesar Baronius's Annales Ecclesiastici, shows that the artist must have intended the twelve scenes to hang in a sequence different from the generally accepted one, though seventeenth-century buyers and viewers could have seen and interpreted the Constantine series quite differently, as their view was distorted by the jumble of Constantinian legends and motifs that had lodged in the cultural memory of Latin Christianity. Finally, the book explores the area of tension between the set's austere monumentality and highly sophisticated aesthetic, which was rooted in Rubens's profound knowledge of classical and Renaissance art and in his earlier forays into the free and creative application of these sources, contemporary French and Brussels tapestry sets, and the pictorial and decorative qualities, possibilities and challenges inherent in the medium itself.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.