The EBB-TIDE

"Throughout the island world of the Pacific, scattered men of many European races and from almost every grade of society carry activity and disseminate disease' The drunken ex-Captain Davis, a vicious Cockney clerk called Huish and the scholarly idler Robert Herrick take over a schooner in pursuit of riches and adventure. When they reach land at Attwater's island, governed in cruel splendour by a Cambridge-educated English gentleman, murderous greed for pearls can lead only to disaster. Charged with action and with evocative exotic scenery, The Ebb-Tide is also a compelling study of ordinary people in extreme circumstances. Describing his heroes as a 'troop of swine', Stevenson vividly lays bare the dilemmas of men who are morally at sea, corrupted by colonial illusions and cast adrift in unknown waters. The most comprehensive paperback edition available, with introduction, notes and chronology of Stevenson's life and times"