Nevil Shute facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Nevil Shute
Shute, pictured in 1949
Born	Nevil Shute Norway (1899-01-17)17 January 1899 Ealing, Middlesex, England
Died	12 January 1960(1960-01-12) (aged 60) Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Occupation	Novelist aeronautical engineer
Genre	Fiction

Nevil Shute Norway (born January 17, 1899 – died January 12, 1960) was a talented English writer and aeronautical engineer. He later moved to Australia. He used his full name, Nevil Shute Norway, for his engineering work. However, he wrote his books under the shorter name Nevil Shute. He did this to keep his engineering job separate from his writing. He didn't want his employers or other engineers to think he wasn't serious because he wrote novels. Some of his most famous books include On the Beach and A Town Like Alice.

Early Life and Education

Nevil Shute was born in Ealing, England. His childhood home was even described in his novel Trustee from the Toolroom. He went to good schools like the Dragon School and Shrewsbury School. Later, he studied engineering science at Balliol College, Oxford, and graduated in 1922.

During the Easter Rising in 1916, his father worked at the Post Office in Dublin, Ireland. Nevil Shute himself helped as a stretcher-bearer during this time.

He also trained to be a gunner at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He wanted to join the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War, but he couldn't, possibly because he had a stammer. Instead, he joined the Suffolk Regiment in 1918. He served as a soldier, guarding areas and helping at military funerals during the 1918 flu pandemic.

Career in Aviation

Nevil Shute was both an aeronautical engineer and a pilot. He started his engineering career at the de Havilland Aircraft Company. He used his pen name for writing to protect his engineering work from any negative attention his novels might get.

In 1924, he joined Vickers Ltd. because he wanted more opportunities. He worked on airships, becoming the Chief Calculator (a stress engineer) for the R100 airship project. By 1929, he was promoted to deputy chief engineer under Barnes Wallis. When Wallis left, Shute became the chief engineer for the R100.

The R100 was a huge airship designed to carry passengers across the British Empire. It successfully flew to Canada and back in 1930. However, a similar government-built airship, the R101, crashed in 1930, ending Britain's interest in these large airships. The R100 was then taken apart.

Shute wrote about his experiences with these airships in his 1954 book, Slide Rule. He was surprised that earlier airship builders didn't calculate the forces on the ships properly. He believed the R101 disaster happened because of how the government managed the project, not just because of the people involved.

In 1931, after the R100 project was cancelled, Shute started his own aircraft company, Airspeed Ltd, with designer A. Hessell Tiltman. Their company faced challenges but eventually became successful. Their Envoy aircraft was even chosen for the King's Flight. As the Second World War approached, they developed a military version called the Airspeed Oxford. This plane became a standard trainer for the RAF and other British Commonwealth air forces, with over 8,500 built.

Nevil Shute was recognized for his work, especially for creating a special hydraulic landing gear for the Airspeed Courier and his efforts on the R100. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

On March 7, 1931, Shute married Frances Mary Heaton, who was a doctor. They had two daughters, Felicity and Shirley.

Second World War Service

When the Second World War began, Nevil Shute was already a well-known novelist. He worked on military projects and joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR). He expected to command a small ship, but his technical skills were quickly recognized.

He ended up working in the Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapons Development. Here, he was a head of engineering, helping to create secret weapons like Panjandrum. He also developed the Rocket Spear, a missile used to fight submarines. This work really appealed to the engineer in him.

Because he was a famous writer, the Ministry of Information sent him to report on important events. He was at the Normandy Landings on D-Day in 1944 and later went to Burma as a correspondent. He finished the war as a lieutenant commander in the RNVR.

Literary Career Highlights

Nevil Shute's first novel, Stephen Morris, was written in 1923 but published much later in 1961. His first book to be published was Marazan in 1926. After that, he usually wrote a new novel every two years. His books slowly gained popularity, but he became much more famous after On the Beach was published in 1957.

Shute's novels are easy to read and have clear stories. Many of his tales are told by someone who isn't a character in the book. A common idea in his novels is the importance of hard work, no matter what a person's job or background is. His books often focus on three main types of stories: early flying adventures before the war, stories set during the Second World War, and stories about Australia.

Another repeated idea in his books is how people can overcome differences in social class (like in Lonely Road) or race (like in The Chequer Board). His Australian novels often celebrate that country.

Shute's main characters were often like him: middle-class professionals such as lawyers, doctors, accountants, bankers, and engineers. However, he also greatly respected honest craftspeople and their important contributions to society, sometimes more than those of the upper classes.

Aviation and engineering are often important parts of Shute's stories. He believed that engineering, science, and design could make human life better. He often used the saying, "It has been said an engineer is a man who can do for ten shillings what any fool can do for a pound."

Some of Shute's novels also explored ideas beyond regular science, like mystical or paranormal possibilities, including reincarnation. He included elements of fantasy and science fiction in books that were otherwise considered realistic. For example, The Chequer Board included Buddhist astrology, and No Highway featured the use of a Planchette.

Twenty-four of his novels and novellas have been published. Many of his books have been made into films or TV shows. These include Lonely Road (1936), On the Beach (1959 and 2000), and A Town Like Alice (1956 film and 1981 TV series).

Shute's last work, The Seafarers, was published over 40 years after he died. He had drafted and rewritten it several times but left it unfinished. Some of its ideas were later used in his 1955 novel Requiem for a Wren.

Life After the War

In 1948, Nevil Shute flew his own Percival Proctor airplane all the way to Australia and back. He was joined by writer James Riddell, who wrote a book about their journey.

When Shute returned to Britain, he felt worried about the high taxes. He decided to move his family to Australia. In 1950, he settled with his wife and two daughters on a farm near Melbourne. He remembered his 1930 trip to Canada and felt that Australia was a place where people lived differently from England. Even though he planned to stay in Australia, he didn't formally become an Australian citizen because, at that time, he was already a British subject, so it wasn't a big deal.

In the 1950s and 1960s, he was one of the world's most successful novelists. Between 1956 and 1958, he enjoyed car racing as a hobby in Australia, driving a white Jaguar XK140. Some of these experiences even made it into his book On the Beach.

Nevil Shute passed away in Melbourne in 1960 after having a stroke.

Honours and Legacy

Several places have been named after Nevil Shute. Norway Road and Nevil Shute Road at Portsmouth Airport, Hampshire are named after him. Shute Avenue in Berwick, Victoria, Australia, was named when the farm used for filming On the Beach was turned into housing.

The public library in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia, is called the Nevil Shute Memorial Library.

In a list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th century by Modern Library readers, A Town Like Alice was ranked number 17. Trustee from the Toolroom was 27th, and On the Beach was 56th.

Works by Nevil Shute

• Stephen Morris (written 1923, published 1961): A young pilot takes on a daring mission.
• Pilotage (written 1924, published 1961): This book continues the story of Stephen Morris.
• Marazan (1926)
• So Disdained (1928): Also known as The Mysterious Aviator. It explores ideas of loyalty and international spies.
• Lonely Road (1932): This novel is about secret plans and different writing styles.
• Ruined City (1938): Also known as Kindling. A rich banker helps a town by starting a shipbuilding company. Even though he faces legal trouble, the town's economy improves.
• What Happened to the Corbetts (1938): Also known as Ordeal. This story predicted the German bombing of Southampton during World War II.
• An Old Captivity (1940)
• Landfall: A Channel Story (1940): A young RAF pilot and a barmaid fall in love. The pilot faces a challenge when he is wrongly blamed for sinking a British submarine, but he is later proven innocent.
• Pied Piper (1942): An older man helps seven children escape from France during the Nazi invasion.
• Most Secret (written 1942, published 1945): This book describes unusual attacks on German forces during WWII using a French fishing boat.
• Pastoral (1944): This story is about relationships and love at an airbase in rural England during wartime.
• Vinland the Good (film script, 1946)
• The Seafarers (written 1946–47, published 2002): A romance between a British naval Lieutenant and a woman from the Women's Royal Naval Service (Wren) at the end of WWII. Their different backgrounds cause problems, and they both find comfort in boating jobs.
• The Chequer Board (1947): A man who is dying tries to find three friends from the war. The novel also discusses racism.
• No Highway (1948): Set in Britain and Canada, this book features an unusual scientist who predicts that a new airliner will fail due to metal fatigue. His warnings are not believed, but years later, the Comet aircraft did fail for this very reason.
• A Town Like Alice (1950): Also known as The Legacy. The main characters meet as prisoners of war in Malaysia during the Japanese occupation. After the war, they find each other again and work to help a small Australian town grow and thrive.
• Round the Bend (1951): This novel is about a new way of thinking that develops around an aircraft mechanic. Shute thought this was his best novel.
• The Far Country (1952): A young woman travels to Australia.
• In the Wet (1953): An Anglican priest tells the story of an Australian aviator.
• Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer. (1954): Nevil Shute's own story about his life as an engineer.
• Requiem for a Wren (1955): Also known as The Breaking Wave. This is the story of a young British woman who feels guilty after an accident during World War II. She moves to Australia to work for the parents of her deceased Australian boyfriend, while his brother searches for her.
• Beyond the Black Stump (1956): This book compares the different ways of life of an unusual family in remote Australia and a traditional family in Oregon, USA.
• On the Beach (1957): Shute's most famous novel, set in Melbourne, Australia. The people there are waiting for the effects of an atomic war to reach them. It was made into a film in 1959.
• The Rainbow and the Rose (1958): This novel tells one man's three love stories, with the narration shifting between different perspectives.
• Trustee from the Toolroom (1960): Shute's last novel, about a man trying to recover lost diamonds from a sunken yacht. The story takes place in Britain, the Pacific Islands, and the US northwest.

See also

In Spanish: Nevil Shute para niños