The story is of colonists and natives on a small atoll in the South Pacific, set in the late 1800s. The island is set upon by a fierce hurricane that destroys nearly everyone and everything. The story is beautifully crafted, with a detail and richness that vividly paints each scene for the reader's imagination.

Charles Bernard Nordhoff (1 February 1887—10 April, 1947) was an American traveler and novelist who began life in London, England, born to American parents. Nordhoff's parents returned to the United States with him in 1889, living first in Pennsylvania, then Rhode Island, and finally settling in California by 1898.

Nordhoff showed an early interest in writing. His first published work was an article in an ornithological journal, written in 1902 when he was just fifteen. At seventeen, he entered Stanford University, but transferred after one year to Harvard.

After graduation in 1909, Nordhoff worked for his father's businesses, first spending two years in Mexico managing a sugar plantation, then four years as an executive of a tile and brick company in Redlands, California. He quit in 1916, signed up with the Ambulance Corps, and travelled to France. There he joined additional American expatriates as a pilot in the Lafayette Escadrille. He finished World War I as a lieutenant in the US Army Air Service. ...