Nordhoff and Hall

(Charles Nordhoff, US, 1887–1947, and James Norman Hall, US, 1887–1951)

Captain Nordhoff and Lieutenant Hall met while they were flying French planes in the First World War. After the war they formed a writing partnership and took one of the most celebrated shipboard mutinies ever for their subject matter. Mutiny on the Bounty (1932) is a well-researched, gripping adventure story, describing the voyage of HMS Bounty to Tahiti in 1787 to pick up a cargo of breadfruit trees. A portion of the crew, led by Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, mutiny against the harsh and vicious regime of Captain William Bligh, and put Bligh and his supporters off the ship. Narrated by young Byam, on board to make a dictionary of Tahitian languages, the book charts the lives of its characters beyond the mutiny and back to trial in England. It has been memorably filmed, and never better than in the 1935 version starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable.

Robert Louis Stevenson, C. S. Forrester, Patrick O'Brian  JR