Arthur Ransome
‘Swallows and Amazons’ (1930) was a groundbreaking children’s novel written by an extraordinary Yorkshireman, Arthur Ransome (1884-1967). Its success led to a series of 12 books, ending with ‘Great Northern?’ (1947). Ransome had been a published author since he was 19 and these boating tales of children having pretend pirate ‘wars’, almost without adult intervention, came after Ransome had seen plenty of war action himself.
His first books included biographies of Edgar Allan Poe (1910) and Oscar Wilde (1912). He then went to Sweden and on to Russia in 1913, where he taught himself the language and wrote a book on Russian folklore. When WW1 came, Ransome remained in Russia and began working as a war correspondent since he was medically unfit for the army. He met Trotsky and fell in love with Trotsky’s secretary, Evgenia. He witnessed the start of the Russian Revolution in 1917 and passed information back to London.
After a courageous episode in which he and Evgenia eventually escaped back to the UK, they lived in the Lake District and Ransome owned a succession of yachts. He was inspired to write of resourceful, resilient youngsters having adventures and learning from them, with empowered girl characters breaking the mould (although the oldest still did the cooking!).
(Images LtoR: picryl.com & Arthur Ransome at Wikimedia Commons / Public domain)