Discover Richard Hughes’s unsettling and brilliant classic, ‘A High Wind in Jamaica,’ and read the complete novel online for free.
Published in 1929, Richard Hughes’s A High Wind in Jamaica (originally titled The Innocent Voyage) is a novel that subverts every expectation of the childhood adventure story. It begins with the familiar trappings: a group of English children living idyllically in post-emancipation Jamaica are sent back to England for their schooling after a hurricane. Their ship is captured by pirates. But here, the conventional narrative ends. Hughes presents a chilling, amoral, and darkly comic exploration of the psychology of childhood, revealing children not as innocent angels or noble savages, but as creatures of primitive, pragmatic, and often terrifying self-interest.
The novel’s power lies in its radical narrative perspective. Hughes refuses to sentimentalize or moralize. He depicts the children’s world as one separate from adult morality, governed by its own ruthless logic and vivid, immediate sensations. They adapt to pirate life with alarming ease, treating the capture as a curious adventure. The central horror of the book—and its masterpiece of ironic tension—is the growing, unbridgeable gap between the children’s perception of events and the adult pirates’ increasingly desperate and confused attempts to understand them. The pirates, expecting fear or gratitude, are instead faced with opaque, unpredictable beings who prove far more dangerous than they appear.
A High Wind in Jamaica is a landmark of modernist fiction, a profound study of the otherness of childhood. It questions the very nature of innocence, guilt, and sanity. Hughes’s prose is sharp, economical, and laced with a detached, ironic wit that makes the story’s disturbing events all the more potent. The novel remains shocking, funny, and deeply perplexing, a work that challenges the reader to reconsider everything they assume about the minds of children.
On this page, you can experience this provocative masterpiece. We offer the complete 1929 novel for online reading.
Book Info
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Title | A High Wind in Jamaica (The Innocent Voyage) |
| Author | Richard Hughes |
| Year of Publication | 1929 |
| Genre | Literary Fiction, Psychological Novel, Adventure |
| Language | English (Original) |
| Legal Status | Public Domain* (In many jurisdictions, including the U.S. as of 2025) |
| Format | Online Reading |
Read A High Wind in Jamaica Online
Set sail on a voyage into the strange heart of childhood. Begin this unsettling novel by exploring the first chapters interactively below.
This preview introduces the Bas-Thornton children in Jamaica, but the full, bizarre, and thrilling narrative of their capture and its consequences is available in the complete text for our subscribers.
A subscription unlocks this classic of psychological fiction and our extensive library of 20th-century literature. Confront a story that defies all easy categories.
About A High Wind in Jamaica
Hughes constructs the novel like a philosophical experiment: place children in an extreme, lawless situation and observe the results with clinical precision.
The Children’s World: Amoral and Immediate
Hughes portrays childhood not as a state of innocence, but of amorality. The children, especially the fierce and feral Emily, live in a perpetual present. They are capable of great cruelty and casual acceptance of violence because they lack an adult framework of consequence and empathy. Their motivations are opaque, even to themselves, driven by impulse, fear, and a powerful survival instinct that operates without ethical calculation.
The Pirates as Comic-Tragic Foils
The pirates, led by the gentlemanly Captain Jonsen and the brutish mate Otto, are ironically the more “civilized” and emotional characters. They are bewildered by their captives. They try to be kind, become frustrated, and are ultimately terrified of the children’s unpredictable nature. The pirates’ increasing helplessness in the face of their child prisoners is a brilliant comic and tragic reversal of power.
The Central Act of Violence
The novel’s pivotal event is a shocking act of violence committed by a child during a moment of panic. Hughes handles it with breathtaking matter-of-factness. The child’s subsequent complete repression of the event, and the other children’s ambiguous collusion in silence, is one of the most psychologically astute sequences in literature. It demonstrates the chasm between action and understanding in the child’s mind.
The Failure of Adult Interpretation
The final section of the book, set in a London courtroom, is a masterpiece of irony. The children, now reintegrated into society, give testimony. Their fragmented, illogical, and self-serving recollections are interpreted by the adult legal system as evidence of trauma and pirate brutality. The reader, privy to the truth, witnesses the utter failure of adult language and law to comprehend the reality of what happened. The real horror remains locked in the children’s minds, in a form they cannot, or will not, articulate.
Why Read A High Wind in Jamaica Today?
The novel is a permanent challenge to our romanticized views of childhood. In an era obsessed with both protecting and pathologizing children, Hughes offers a bracing, unsentimental, and deeply ambiguous portrait. It suggests that children inhabit a different psychic reality, one we can witness but never fully reclaim or understand.
It is also a supremely entertaining and stylish novel, filled with dark humor, unforgettable scenes, and prose that is as crisp and bracing as the “high wind” of its title. To read it is to be unsettled, provoked, and utterly captivated by a vision of human nature that is as disturbing as it is convincing.
FAQ
Can I read A High Wind in Jamaica for free?
Yes, you can read the opening chapters for free via our interactive preview. Access to the complete novel requires a subscription.
Is this a children’s book?
Absolutely not. It is a complex, dark, and psychologically sophisticated adult novel that uses children as its subjects. Its themes and events are not suitable for young readers.
What is the meaning of the title?
The “high wind” is the hurricane that sets the plot in motion, but it also symbolizes the chaotic, amoral force of nature—both in the environment and within the children themselves. It is a force that sweeps away the old order (life in Jamaica) and unleashes something primal.
Who is the main character?
Emily Bas-Thornton, the eldest daughter, is the focal consciousness for much of the novel. Her fierce, inscrutable, and volatile nature is the book’s central mystery.
Can I read it on my phone?
Yes. Hughes’s vivid, concise chapters make for gripping reading on any device, pulling you into its unique world from the very first page.