Grin’s stories inspire a yearning for an exciting life full of ris , adventure and that “sense o f the sublime” so typical o f explorers seafarers, and travellers. After Grin’s stories, the reader wants to see the whole world— not the writer’s countries o f the imagination, but real, genuine ones full of light, with their forests, with the multilingual hubbub o f their harbours, and with human passion and love. “The world tantalizes me,’’ wrote Grin. “Its oceans are vast, its islands without number, and there are so many mysterious, fatally fascinating nooks and crannies.