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The Storm (Penguin Classics)
 
 

The Storm (Penguin Classics) (Hardcover)

by Daniel Defoe (Author), Richard Hamblyn (Editor) "Though a System of Exhalation, Dilation, and Extension, things which the Ancients founded the Doctrine of Winds upon, be not my direct Business; yet it..." (more)
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (27 Nov 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0713997265
  • ISBN-13: 978-0713997262
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.8 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 676,828 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #59 in  Books > Fiction > The Classics > Defoe, Daniel

Product Description

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

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.

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First Sentence
Though a System of Exhalation, Dilation, and Extension, things which the Ancients founded the Doctrine of Winds upon, be not my direct Business; yet it cannot but be needful to the present Design to Note, that the Difference in the Opinions of the Ancients, about the Nature and Original of Winds, is a Leading Step to one Assertion which I have advanc'd in all that I have said with Relation to Winds, viz. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Re-living the Great Storm, 5 Dec 2003
By Martin L., Brayne (High Peak, Derbys United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
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.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Enthralling, 1 Nov 2007
By kehs (Hertfordshire, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars obscured by fiction, 5 May 2006
By DH Dixon "whitespeck" (England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
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.
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5.0 out of 5 stars just to add to what everyone else has said-
This is an amazing book about an amazing event. To people in the early 18th Century, the Storm described by Defoe was the third part of a trinity of disasters: the Plague, the... Read more
Published on 29 Sep 2005 by Michael J. Brett

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