Stephen Morris and Pilotage (1961) - Nevil Shute Audiobook

Written by Nevil Shute
Read by Gordon Griffin
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 80 Kbps
Unabridged

Vintage International

Length: 9hrs 30 min
Publisher: Sounding Studio, 2010

Nevil Shute’s first book(s)

These connected novels could easily be overlooked as early unpublished drafts from a man who wrote many later bestsellers - no publisher took them on at the time and they are available now only because Shute’s success made them profitable long after the event (1961).

These two related novellas, Stephen Morris and Pilotage, were Nevil Shute’s first works of fiction (1920’s) and drew on his own youthful experiences. Both concern young men obsessed with the early world of aviation. Stephen Morris has just called off his engagement to the girl he loves because he is a penniless graduate with no prospects–but for his dream of building airplanes.

These two linked novels have flying as a shared theme. In Stephen Morris we see the eponymous hero leaving Oxford University unable to marry his girl because of a lack of prospects. He starts as a mechanic and a pilot at a friend’s aerodrome business.

Pilotage continues the story, focusing on Stephen’s ambitious navigator Peter Dennison, as he tests a daring idea for a new cross-Atlantic airmail service.

In Pilotage, Peter Dennison is to start as a junior partner at a firm in China. The woman he wishes to marry can’t accept his proposal if it means going to live in Hong Kong. Dennison has to find a way to make money and marry.

“Set right after WWI in England with the financial slump after the war. I enjoyed just the right touch of mathematics in the book about the beginnings of aeroplane design and flying, as well as some excellent human interest (both friendships and romance) and some lovely descriptions of the countryside and the coast. The second part of the book ‘Pilotage’ dealt with sailing and boats as well as flying, with most of the same characters as in the first half, and again a proper and interesting proportion of mathematics, but not too much. The ending was tense and very well executed.