About the Author

Arthur Ransome was born in Leeds in 1884. He had an adventurous life – as a baby he was carried by his father to the top of the Old Man of Coniston, a peak that is 2,276ft high!

He went to Russia in 1913 to study folklore and in 1914, at the start of the First World War, he became a foreign correspondent for the Daily News. In 1917, when the Russian Revolution began, he became a journalist and was a special correspondent of the Guardian newspaper. He knew many of the leading Bolshevik figures, including Lenin, Trotsky and the latter’s secretary, Evgenia Shelepina. These contacts led to persistent but unproven accusations that he spied for both the Bolsheviks and Britain.

Ransome married Evgenia and returned to England in 1924. He bought a cottage near Windermere in the Lake District in the late 1920s and worked as a foreign correspondent and highly respected angling columnist for the Manchester Guardian.

He wrote Swallows and Amazons in 1930. This was just the beginning of a series of twelve books that feature the same beloved characters and adventures with boats. The sequel Swallowdale followed in 1931 and starts with an unfortunate shipwreck and the dreadful Great Aunt’s attempts to ruin their holiday. Next up is Peter Duck (1932), which takes the adventure to the Caribbean. Winter Holiday (1933) introduces us to Dick and Dorothea Callum (the Ds). Coot Club (1934) moves the adventures to Norfolk. Pigeon Post (1935) includes tales of prospecting for gold in the Lake District and We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea (1937) sees the children on a hairy adventure across the North Sea. Secret Water (1939) moves the action to the Essex coast and The Big Six (1940) is a detective story set in Norfolk. In Missee Lee (1941) the children go on a round-the-world trip with Captain Flint and have a run-in with some frightening Chinese pirates. The Picts and the Martyrs (1943) brings back the fearsome Great Aunt. The final book in the series, Great Northern? (1947), sees the Swallows and Amazons, the Ds and Captain Flint sailing in the Hebrides and trying to outwit the nasty Mr Jemmerling.

Arthur Ransome died in 1967 and is buried at Rusland in the Lake District.