Pigeon Post
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Information about Pigeon Post, (1936), by Arthur Ransome.
Pigeon Post (1936), is Arthur Ransome’s 30th published book. This page includes information on its publication, availability, background and contents.
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First Publication
Published by Jonathan Cape in November, 1936
Availability
In print.
Hardback: Jonathan Cape ISBN 978-0224021241
Paperback: Red Fox ISBN 978-0099427193
E-book: Random House Children’s Books (from 30 June, 2011)
Also available as an abridged audiobook (Gabriel Woolf)
Background
‘Gold,’ she said. ‘Dick’s a geologist and Nancy’s turned him on to reading all of Captain Flint’s mining books, and tomorrow we’re going right inside Kanchenjunga to talk to Slater Bob…’
Ransome returned to the Lake Country for his sixth Swallows and Amazons novel. He took expert advice on mining from Oscar Gnospellius, Barbara Collingwood’s husband, and used it to craft a novel about the Swallows, Amazons and D’s prospecting for gold.
He began writing in March, 1934, but progress was delayed first by the Ransomes moving house, from Low Ludderburn to Suffolk, and then by Ransome drawing a set of illustrations for Swallowdale, to replace the original drawings supplied by Clifford Webb. This meant that he missed the pre-Christmas publication deadline in 1935, much to Cape’s consternation.
Ransome wrote a second draft in the summer of 1936. Despite Egvenia’s encouragement – she told him it “is not very much worse than the worst of the others” – he persisted with revisions until he’d completed his manuscript in late August. At the same time he had to complete the full set of illustrations for the book.
Despite Evgenia’s opinion, Pigeon Post won the first Carnegie Medal for Children’s Literature, awarded to Ransome in 1937.
Synopsis
The Swallows, Amazons and D’s go prospecting for gold in the Lakeland fells, where they face the dangers of drought and disused mine workings, together with the sinister presence of a rival prospector.
