Product Description

On the evening of 26th November 1703, a cyclone from the north Atlantic hammered into southern Britain at over seventy miles an hour, claiming the lives of over 8,000 people. Eyewitnesses reported seeing cows left stranded in the branches of trees and windmills ablaze from the friction of their whirling sails. For Defoe, bankrupt and just released from prison for seditious writings, the storm struck during one of his bleakest moments. But it also furnished him with the material for his first book, and in his powerful depiction of private suffering and individual survival played out against a backdrop of public calamity we can trace the outlines of his later masterpieces such as A Journal of the Plague Year and Robinson Crusoe.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #58602 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Michael Fish
'A fascinating book chronicling the aftermath of the Great Storm of 1703'

From the Inside Flap
'Horror and Confusion seiz'd upon all, whether on Shore or at Sea: No Pen can describe it, no Tongue can express it, no Thought conceive it'

On the evening of 26 November 1703, a cyclone from the north Atlantic hammered into Britain at over seventy miles an hour. Eyewitnesses reported seeing cows left stranded in the branches of trees and windmills ablaze from the friction of their whirling sails - and some 8,000 people lost their lives. For Defoe, just released from prison for his 'seditious' writings, bankrupt and desperate, the storm struck during one of his bleakest moments. But it also furnished him with the material for this, his first book. In his powerful depiction of private suffering and survival played out against a backdrop of natural devastation and public calamity, we can trace the outlines of his later masterpieces A Journal of the Plague Year and Robinson Crusoe.

The Storm has been out of print for nearly a century, and this major new edition marks the 300th anniversary of what is still the worst storm in British history. This edition also includes two other pieces inspired by the events of that momentous night and written by Defoe during the same period: 'The Layman's Sermon Upon the Late Storm', and the poem 'The Storm: An Essay'.

About the Author
Richard Hamblyn is the author of the Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies, which won the LA Times Book Prize and was short-listed for the BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize in 2002. He lives and works in London. Richard Hamblyn is the author of the Invention of Clouds: How an Amateur Meteorologist Forged the Language of the Skies, which won the LA Times Book Prize and was short-listed for the BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize in 2002. He lives and works in London.

Customer Reviews

Re-living the Great Storm
This carefully edited re-issue of Daniel Defoe's little known book 'The Storm' makes available a volume which, unaccountably, has been out-of-print for almost a century. Not even the 'Great Storm' of October 1987 - often described as 'the worst since the Great Storm of 1703' - was sufficient to stir the publishing houses from their torpor. Penguin and their editor Richard Hamblyn are now to be congratulated on seizing the opportunity of the 300th anniversary of the event to publish the book in a most attractive format.

Newly-released from prison when the Great Storm struck on the night of 26/27 November, Defoe, ever on the look-out to keep his creditors at bay, hit upon the entirely new idea of appealing, via the newspapers, for eye-witness accounts of the event. The result is a remarkable collection of first-hand accounts from across southern Britain.

Defoe began his work with a study of the 'Natural Causes and Original of Winds', a fascinating introduction to what was the current state of meteorological knowledge at the beginning of the eighteenth century. He also supplies readings of atmospheric pressure which, as Hamblyn points out, have enabled modern climate historians to re-construct the event.

The most absorbing part of the book, however, is the eye-witness accounts themselves variously describing the damage inflicted upon houses, churches, windmills, woods and ships at sea. Many of these speak to us with a powerful directness enabling us to appreciate the terrors of God-fearing people and immersing us in the realities of that Storm-struck society. Not all of the stories are of tragedy. I particularly enjoyed the tale from the village in Kent where the church spire had been blown down and the local children amused themselves by jumping over the fallen masonry so that, in the future, they could claim they had once leaped over the steeple!

There are a small number of proof-reading errors - the consequence, perhaps, of needing to meet the tercentary deadline - but these are easily outweighed by the important re-emergence of this pioneering work of journalism and classic of disaster reportage.

Enthralling

I found this to be most enthralling. It's full of info about Defoe and his life, and filled with eyewitness accounts of the most terrible storm to hit Britain. The storm arrived in 1703, houses were destroyed, thousands died and fires broke out all over. The eye- witness accounts make for fascinating reading. Defoe advertised for these accounts in a newspaper and people came forward to tell of their experience of the storm. Defoe used these tellings to write The Storm - his first full-length book. I found it amazing to think that one of our most revered writers was bankrupt and had served time in prison. If only he could have known how famous he was to become and how well loved his books would be.

obscured by fiction
Until now Defoe's The Storm hasn't been in print as a single volume since the mid 19th century. The reason being that since the mid 19th century the public has preferred to see Defoe as a fictionist like Dickens, which has degraded the value his Journal of the Plague Year and consigned The Storm to oblivion. These works form a pair, both being about national disasters of historic significance. The difference in style is that The Storm consists of Defoe's own observations and research, gathered together with eyewitness accounts from around the nation which Defoe advertised for, while A Journal of the Plague Year has the eyewitness account and Defoe's research blended together into one common narrative. No other journalist has ever done this (perhaps this is why the audacity of Jack Shephard appealed to him). But if you read the Plague Year as fiction it would be like trying to read The Storm as fiction.

Weather experts have always commented favourably on The Storm and it is legendary. Like the Plague Year, this book is great to read through and browse in afterwards as well - it is not a book to throw away. Penguin has retained the dynamics of Defoe's original punctuation, but I wish that the print was bigger and blacker and more comfortable to read.