"Keeps you pegging away, page after page, unwilling to put the book down." - "New York Times"
"Mr. Shute knows how to pick astonishing stories and how to keep them moving on non-stop tracks." - "New Republic"
"Excellent entertainment, varied and unusual." - Basil Davenport, "Saturday Review of Literature"
Donald Ross is a young pilot, out of work and in desperate need of a job. So, despite the extreme danger involved, he jumps at the chance to fly Oxford professor Cyril Lockwood and his daughter Alix to the frozen wilds of Greenland to study Viking ruins. But the perils of the journey are nothing compared to what will happen when they arrive. Ignoring the warnings of the terrified natives, who believe the ruins are haunted, the explorers set up camp there and undergo a strange and mystical experience that will lead to a discovery that none of them could ever have foreseen . . .
One of the best-loved novels by Nevil Shute, "An Old Captivity" (1940) blends romance and aeronautical adventure with a unique and compelling strain of fantasy into a page-turning story with an extraordinary conclusion. This edition, the first to be published in America in decades, features a new introduction by Rob Spence.