Nuns in Jeopardy Martin Boyd 1940

Dustjacket synopsis:
"in this witty, remarkable novel, thirteen shipwrecked survivors - including six nuns and a handful of sailors - find themselves stranded on an uninhabited island, somewhere in the Pacific.

"Amidst the lush tropical splendour each of the survivors must confront the truth of their own beings, as the facade of civilized life begins to erode and they are tempted into increasingly primitve actions..."

Quotes:
"Nuns in Jeopardy is tantalizing and compelling. While offering explanations, it leaves unsolved mysteries...moving easily between sensuousness and rationality...an unconventional island romance." - Leonie Kramer from the Introduction.

First Paragraph:

The Princess of Teck was rolling heavily, but Sister Agatha was dreaming that she was at a garden party at Bishopscourt. The sunlight was more dazzling than she had ever known it in the natural world. Its warm effulgence, which seemed to enfold her in soft golden wings, had the quality of spiritual benediction as well as of physical warmth. As often in her dreams, she was talking to the most important person present, here the archbishop. They chattered with an intimacy unknown in her actual experience. Then the governor-general arrived, and she somehow had become archbishop. She continued to chat to the governor-general with the same intimacy. He was wearing a bright yellow uniform, exquisitely embroidered with small blue flowers and silver filigree. She was faintly worried by the fact that his face had not Lord Bletchingdon's round red fatuity, but was finely-drawn, cynical, and intelligent, with pointed nose and eyebrows. She took him round the garden whence the other guests had disappeared.

From the Penguin paperback edition, 1986.
This edition was published with an introduction by Leonie Kramer.

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Last modified: October 24, 2003.