“At its heart … The Paradoxal Compass is a pastoral paean to the South West of Morpurgo’s formative years, and it is as a nature writer that he excels. Memory combines with meticulous attention to detail to describe the nuanced changes and degradations over time to Devon’s landscape – of kingfishers, geological formations and white-beaked dolphins – providing a vivid and evocative framework within which Morpurgo’s historical narrative and overarching argument can unfurl.”

Nicolas Liney’s review of Horatio Morpurgo’s The Paradoxal Compass: Drake’s Dilemma.