In Ballast to the White Sea is Malcolm Lowry's most ambitious work of
the mid-1930s. Inspired by his life experience, the novel recounts the
story of a Cambridge undergraduate who aspires to be a writer but has
come to believe that both his book and, in a sense, his life have
already been "written." After a fire broke out in Lowry's squatter's
shack, all that remained of In Ballast to the White Sea were a few
sheets of paper. Only decades after Lowry's death did it become known
that his first wife, Jan Gabrial, still had a typescript. This scholarly
edition presents, for the first time, the once-lost novel. Patrick
McCarthy's critical introduction offers insight into Lowry's sense of
himself while Chris Ackerley's extensive annotations provide important
information about Lowry's life and art in an edition that will captivate
readers and scholars alike.