People, Sep. 8, 1958

British Novelist Nevil Shute, 59, who moved out to Australia in 1950, was back in London to stimulate sales of a new novel, see old friends, change a few attitudes. Five years ago, In the Wet set him up, after a long career in fiction, as the empire's most promising angry middle-aged man. Jumping 30 years into the future, Shute's 17th novel described a commonwealth of flourishing dominions (where citizens' merits could earn them extra votes) fettered by a mired-in-Socialism United Kingdom that approximates "a home for incurables." A tired, aging Queen Elizabeth II is "in the middle of a...

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