Showing results by publisher "Faber & Faber" in Sea Adventures

A decrepit warship is becalmed halfway to Australia, stilled in an ocean wilderness of heat and sea mists. In this surreal, fête-like atmosphere, a ball is held with a passing ship: the passengers dance and flirt, while beneath them seaweed like green hair spreads ominously over the hull. Half-mad with fear, drink, love and opium, both vessel and passengers feel themselves going to pieces, and the very planks seem to twist themselves alive as the ship comes apart at the seams.

On the last stretch of its epic voyage from England to Australia, a disintegrating warship inches towards land. But there are still trials ahead, as the vessel is smashed against an ice cliff and blasted by a great storm, while the claustrophobic passengers battle erotic desires, masculine rivalry and violent power struggles—all experiencing a sea change in their natures. And when an unseen fire begins to smoulder below decks, the other side of the world has never seemed further away.

Edmund Talbot is sailing to Australia in the early 19th century. In his journal, he records mounting tensions aboard the ancient, stinking warship, as officers, sailors, soldiers and emigrants jostle in the cramped darkness below decks. But when something happens to Reverend Colley that brings him into a 'hell of self-degradation', it seems that shame is a force deadlier than the sea itself....

Mr Lloyd has decided to travel to the island by boat without engine - the authentic experience. Unbeknownst to him, Mr Masson will also soon be arriving for the summer. Both will strive to encapsulate the truth of this place - one in his paintings, the other with his faithful rendition of its speech, the language he hopes to preserve. But the people who live here on this rock - three miles wide and half-a-mile long - have their own views on what is being recorded, what is being taken and what is given in return.