''Ruined City'' is a 1938 novel by

Nevil Shute Nevil Shute Norway (17 January 189912 January 1960) was an English novelist and aeronautical engineer who spent his later years in Australia. He used his full name in his engineering career and Nevil Shute as his pen name, in order to protect h ...

, published by Cassell in the UK. In the US, the book was published by William Morrow under the title ''Kindling''.

Plot summary

The story is set in the Depression years of the 1930s, when a rich London financier, Henry Warren, suffering from health problems and a broken marriage, decides to disappear from his old life, and travel ''incognito'' in the industrial North, now plagued with unemployment. In the fictional town of Sharples, whose only shipyard has just closed, he is taken ill and admitted to hospital, where he is mistaken for one of the unemployed. After a successful operation, and a burgeoning friendship with Alice, the hospital’s

almoner An almoner (} ' (alms), via the popular Latin '. History Christians have historically been encouraged to donate one-tenth of their income as a tithe to their church and additional offerings as needed for the poor. The first deacons, mentioned ...

, he takes stock of the local situation, and resolves to use his wealth to help the community. Knowing that the shipyard is for sale at a knockdown price, he buys it secretly, but finds that he can only attract business from a dubious oil-rich Balkan state, in need of tankers. To float the new company, Warren must sign a prospectus, declaring falsely that the yard is well-placed to make a profit. But when the oil-state suffers a revolution, its business is lost, and the only way to save the yard is for Warren to take personal responsibility for the deception, earning him two years’ jail. On his eventual release, he revisits Sharples, to find that the yard has managed to prosper, thanks to new rearmament projects, and the management has erected a bronze plaque, honouring his part in saving the local jobs. When he is recognised, the whole town rushes to greet him, including Alice who has been loyally awaiting his return.

Background

The book is loosely based on Shute's own experience at

Howden Howden () is a market and minster town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies in the Vale of York to the north of the M62, on the A614 road about south-east of York and north of Goole, which lies across the Ri ...

in Yorkshire as Calculator of the

R100 His Majesty's Airship R100 was a privately designed and built British rigid airship made as part of a two-ship competition to develop a commercial airship service for use on British Empire routes as part of the Imperial Airship Scheme. The ot ...

project and his experience as a director of

Airspeed Ltd Airspeed Limited was established in 1931 to build aeroplanes in York, England, by A. H. Tiltman and Nevil Shute Norway (the aeronautical engineer and novelist, who used his forenames as his pen-name). The other directors were A. E. Hewitt, ...

. In 1935, Airspeed signed a manufacturing licensing agreement with

Fokker Fokker was a Dutch aircraft manufacturer named after its founder, Anthony Fokker. The company operated under several different names. It was founded in 1912 in Berlin, Germany, and became famous for its fighter aircraft in World War I. In 1919 ...

and considered making the

Fokker D.XVII Fokker D.XVII (sometimes written as Fokker D.17), was a 1930s Dutch sesquiplane developed by Fokker. It was the last fabric-covered biplane fighter they developed in a lineage that extended back to the First World War Fokker D.VII. Design and d ...

fighter for Greece, who wanted to buy from Britain for currency reasons. Shute (now managing director) and a Fokker representative "who was well accustomed to methods of business in the Balkans" spent three weeks in Athens but did not close the deal.

References

External links

* {{Nevil Shute 1938 British novels Novels by Nevil Shute Novels set in Northumberland Cassell (publisher) books