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).

A story that grips the reader with its quiet veracity, its truth to character, its understanding of the young man of the R.A.F and the nature of their job, of the so much owing so many to so few. The story has pace and excitement, unforced sentiment and wholly unaffected gaiety...Alive, humourous and finely restrained in feeling throughout...fascinating descriptions of Service operations...thrilling and eloquent