Few tasks can be as enjoyable as one which yokes together writers as profoundly interesting and engaging as Arthur Ransome and Robert Louis Stevenson. For my love of both authors I am indebted to my parents, Jeanie and Stan Northcote-Bade, who told me that I spoke my first words by joining in a Stevenson poem which they were reading to me. I am enormously grateful to Arthur Ransome’s literary executor Christina Hardyment and her co-executors Elizabeth Sewart and Geraint Lewis who entrusted me with Ransome’s Stevenson manuscript and let me get on with it. I am above all indebted to the encouragement and assistance of Brian Findlay, whose many suggestions for improvements have all been adopted, and to Roger Savage, without whose urgings-on, constant support and careful reading this book might never have reached its publisher. I am grateful to the Red Slipper Fund of The Arthur Ransome Society for a grant towards illustrations.
In working on Ransome’s manuscript over several years I am specifically indebted to the meticulous research of the bibliographer Wayne G. Hammond, whose Arthur Ransome: A Bibliography (2000) (and its on-line supplements) has been at my elbow throughout; to the masterly and very readable biography by the historian Hugh Brogan, The Life of Arthur Ransome (1984); to Ransome’s own un-put-downable Autobiography, completed by his editor, friend and literary executor Rupert Hart-Davis (1976); and to the racy story of Ransome in Russia, The Last Englishman by Roland Chambers (2009). Ransome’s unpublished letters, diaries, notebooks and draft manuscript and typescript papers in the archives of the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds and at the Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry, Kendal have been a major source of new information and corroborative detail, as have letters by Ransome in private ownership. For Robert Louis Stevenson studies, the first resource for anyone these days must be the massive and impressive academic website maintained by Richard Dury and colleagues, w.w.w.robert-louis-stevenson.org. Writers on Stevenson whose work I have read or reread with enjoyment for this project include Richard Ambrosini, Oliver S. Buckton, Jenni Calder, Richard Dury, Claire Harman, Paul Maixner and Roger G. Swearingen. The standard eight-volume Yale edition of Stevenson’s letters by B. A. Booth and Ernest Mehew, The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson (1994–5) has been a constant point of reference.
I am indebted to many librarians, archivists, and specialist academics, historians, and others with expert knowledge for help with general and specific queries. Ann Farr, formerly of Special Collections at the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds, Margaret Ratcliffe, librarian and archivist of The Arthur Ransome Society Library, and Ted Alexander, historian and archivist of Ransome and Walker material, have been continuously helpful and I am extremely indebted to their generosity and expertise. I am grateful to Ann and Mike Farr for having me as their guest while I was reading at the Brotherton. I am grateful to the hard-working staff of Special Collections at the Brotherton Library, including Chris Sheppard, Kasia Drozdziak, Karen Mee, and Tsendpurev Tsegmid (who took photographs used in this book) and, especially for help with things Russian, to Richard Davies. At the Museum of Lakeland Life and Industry, Abbot Hall, Kendal, I am particularly grateful to James Arnold. I am grateful to the hospitable Cambridge University Library and its generous and ever-helpful staff.
For specific information, permissions or advice I would like to thank Robert-Louis Abrahamson, Judy Andrews, James N. Bade, The Bodleian Library (Colin Harris), Nick Brewster, The British Postal Museum and Archive, Hugh Brogan, the Carlisle Library (Stephen White), Gigi Crompton, Richard Dury, Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP (Peter Titus), Penny Fielding, Brian Findlay, The Fullerton Collection, Caroline Gould, Arthur Grosset, David Groves, Wayne G. Hammond, Christina Hardyment, Jim Henderson, Hammersmith & Fulham Register Office (David Ross), Jackie Jones, Cecily Ledgard, Linklaters plc, the Lupton family (in particular the late Arthur Lupton), Andrew Nash, The National Portrait Gallery (Melissa Atkinson), The National Library of Scotland, Jerry O’Mahony, Bruce Phillips, Random House Group archive and library (Jean Rose and Jo Watt), University of Reading Library (Nathan Williams), Alan Riach, Roger Robinson, The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (Philip Winterbottom and archivists), Roger Savage, the late David Sewart, Elizabeth Sewart, Nicholas Spurrier, Kirstie Taylor, Taylor and Francis Group (Mindy Rozencrantz), Matthew Townend, Roger Wardale, Jonathan Wild, and the audiences at talks given by me on related material in the last few years. Every effort has been made to trace and contact holders of copyright. The editor regrets any errors or omissions – they are not attributable to anyone named here – and would be glad to receive further information.
The project has benefited from the interest and encouragement of Peter Clifford, Michael Middeke, and Catherine Larner at Boydell & Brewer, and the assistance of my copy-editor, David Roberts.
Kirsty Nichol Findlay
The Bull Pen, Hallthwaites, 2011