London: Life and Letters, 1929. First edition - The first publication of this classic novel, considered one of the best novels ever written about childhood and possibly an influence on such later novels as Golding's Lord of the Flies. Set in the late 19th century, this is both a poetic and an ironic account of seven young children, on their way to school in England after a hurricane destroyed their home in Jamaica, who wind up on a pirate ship. As explained in the editorial by MacCarthy, it had been the intent of this literary journal to devote an entire issue to one controversy or one work - but the editors wanted to be sure that such a work would be one of 'unusual merit and originality.' and they felt this novel by Hughes met their requirements. Rather than serializing the novel, they increased the length of the periodical and shortened the novel somewhat so the entire story could be presented in one issue - preceding the publication in book format by Chatto and Windus, but as MacCarthy stated 'no one who reads this abbreviated version can fail to want to possess the book.' pp 82-242. Advertisements.

New York: Dutton, (1938, c 1929) dj. Hardcover - Uncommon novel for older children and young adults written by the wife of a member of the engineering firm - May, Jekyll and Randolph - who were contracted by the wealthy American entrepreneur Percival Farquahar to build the line from the Bolivian border to Porto Velho. As she notes in the preface "day by day, for months, I witnessed its construction." Construction of this now long abandoned Madeira-Mamore Railroad took almost 6 years, from 1907 to 1912, and it became known as the Devil's Railroad because of the thousands of deaths of construction worker. This book tells the story of "two brothers in search of fortune and fame, travel from New York to Porto Velho, 1,700 miles up the Amazon & Madeira Rivers beyond the last outposts of civilization. The path of adventure takes one of boys to the front line camps, where he has many startling and unusual experiences with poisonous snakes and Indians and is kept captive by a white man on his rubber plantation. "Illustrated with "strong black and white drawings" by Beth Krebs Morris (a frontispiece and 7 internal plates) ix, 167 pp.