However, wanting the friendship of the busy Arctic Explorers, they do their damnedest to fit in, and learn the codes, literal and otherwise (and one of the fun parts of this book is the role that codes play in the unfolding of the story. Then there's the introduction of two new characters, Dick and Dorothea, who at the outset are not the least bit outdoorsy and are not given to transforming their everyday activities into epic adventures. First, there's the Winter setting, which makes for a refreshing change. This, the third book of the Swallows and Amazons series (I do not count Peter Duck since it is a 'made-up' story, and not something that 'really happened'), is perhaps the best. Such is the power of this gentle winter holiday adventure about a group of children turning a frozen lake into a vast unexplored Arctic, theirs to discover, that in the midst of one of the hottest summers on record, I looked up from the page out the window, saw the overcast sky, and quite seriously wondered for a moment if it was about to snow. All remain in print and have been widely translated.Īrthur Ransome died in June 1967 and is buried at Rusland in the Lake District. Today Ransome is best known for his Swallows and Amazons series of novels, (1931 - 1947). Settling in the Lake District, he spent the late 1920s as a foreign correspondent and highly-respected angling columnist for the Manchester Guardian, before settling down to write Swallows and Amazons and its successors. Ransome married Evgenia and returned to England in 1924.

These contacts led to persistent but unproven accusations that he 'spied' for both the Bolsheviks and Britain. He knew many of the leading Bolsheviks, including Lenin, Radek, Trotsky and the latter's secretary, Evgenia Shvelpina.

Petersburg, where he was ideally placed to observe and report on the Russian Revolution. He used this precarious existence to practice writing, producing several minor works before Bohemia in London (1907), a study of London's artistic scene and his first significant book.Īn interest in folklore, together with a desire to escape an unhappy first marriage, led Ransome to St. In 1902, Ransome abandoned a chemistry degree to become a publisher's office boy in London. Arthur Michell Ransome (Janu– June 3, 1967) was an English author and journalist.

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome