The Forests of the Night the war as it really was, as James Kirkup observed, an "acid portrait of those who played at being members of the [French] Resistance". The novel's theme and title come from the opening lines to William Blake's poem "The Tyger": "Tiger, tiger, burning bright - in the forests of the night." "The Forests of the Night" was translated in 1951 into English by Nora Wydenbruck; it has not been re-printed since. Francis is the son of the Comte de Balansun, whose family resides in the French town of Saint-Clar, near the Pyrenees. Francis, in the beginning of the novel, skips
Tyger (ship) skins obtained in barter. In November, an accidental fire broke out and "Tyger" rapidly burned to the waterline. The charred hull was beached and all but the small section of prow and keel salvaged in 1916 (q.v.) remained in that location, buried beneath what later became the intersection of Greenwich and Dey Streets in Lower Manhattan. During the fire, the crew salvaged some sails, rope, tools and fittings. Over the winter, Block and his menpresumably with help from the Indiansbuilt "Onrust" ("Restless"), which they used to explore the East River and Long Island Sound before returning to Europe in 1614.