Swallows and Amazons
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Information about Swallows and Amazons, (1930), by Arthur Ransome.
Swallows and Amazons (1930) is Arthur Ransome’s 25th published book. This page includes information on its publication, availability, background and contents.
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First Publication
Published by Jonathan Cape July, 1930.
Availability
In print.
Hardback: Jonathan Cape ISBN 978-0224606318
Paperback: Red Fox ISBN 978-0099427339 (standard edition) & 978-0099503910 (80th anniversary edition)
E-book: Random House Children’s Books (from 30 June, 2011)
Also available as an unabridged audiobook (BBC) and abridged audiobook (Gabriel Woolf)
Background
I used at night to look for the North Star and, in my mind’s eye, could see the beloved skyline of great hills beneath it.
Swallows and Amazons grew from many different strands in Ransome’s life.
Creative Sparks…
Ransome had two main creative inspirations. The first was his early childhood experience of holidays at Nibthwaite, at the Southern end of Coniston Water. They gave him a lifelong fascination for the people and places around the lake, and a spiritual attachment to the lake itself. This was the place he used to dream about whilst wandering around the World. These powerful childhood memories were always likely to light a creative spark in a writer who had the desire to tell stories in his blood.
It was Ransome’s passion for Coniston that made him return in 1903, for a holiday during which he met W G Collingwood and his family. They soon became the most significant friends and creative influences of Ransome’s life. W G Collingwood had been John Ruskin’s devoted friend and assistant. He was also a highly-respected writer, painter, geologist, archaeologist and expert on Norse Sagas in his own right. His wife was a talented piano player, whilst his three daughters, Dora, Barbara and Ursula were keen artists and sculptors. Collingwood’s son, Robin, grew up to be one of Britain’s leading 20th century philosophers. Their home, at Lanehead, was a creative hive that welcomed, adopted, mentored and inspired Ransome. In addition to their whole-hearted support of his literary dreams, the Collingwoods also taught him to sail.
Within a few years Ransome proposed, in turn, to Barbara and Dora. Both turned him down and Dora eventually married Ernest Altounyan, an Armenian doctor. She moved with him to Aleppo, in Syria, where they had five children, Taqui, Susan, Mavis (always known as Titty), Roger and Brigit.
In 1928, the Altounyans returned to Coniston for a long sabbatical. They stayed at Bank Ground Farm, next door to Lanehead. By this date Ransome had settled at Low Ludderburn with his second wife, Evgenia. Ransome renewed his friendship with the Collingwoods and Altounyans. He helped Ernest to buy two small sailing dinghies, Swallow and Mavis, in which the Altounyan children could learn to sail on the waters where the Collingwoods had taught him, over a quarter of a century before.
Before I got home I had the beginning of the book in my head
The Altounyans returned to Aleppo in January, 1929. On the eve of their departure they gave Ransome a gift of red Turkish slippers. They kept Mavis, whilst Ransome inherited Swallow. Ransome was touched by the Altounyan’s gift and by memories of their stay, which must have evoked his own happy childhood experiences. He thus began to look for ways to repay them. On 24 March, 1929, he sailed Swallow for the first time on Windermere, to inspirational effect. It was the day his diary records, “began S and A“, the book he dedicated to the Altounyans in Aleppo as a reminder of the Lake District they’d left behind.
…And Practical Urges
1929 was for me the year of crisis… a hinge year as it were, joining and dividing two quite different lives.
In 1928 Ransome wrote 43 Rod and Line fishing essays, 9 political leaders and 49 book reviews for the Manchester Guardian. He was busy, but not satisfied. In December he wrote to his mother: “I’d have liked to send you a new book by myself. But I haven’t written one and I have begun to feel that I never shall again… So many little jobs to be done makes book writing nearly hopeless.”
Early in 1929 his editor and close personal friend, C P Scott offered him the post of resident correspondent in Berlin. It meant a hugely increased salary. But Ransome was a political journalist by accident, not desire, and he yearned to escape. On 19 March, 1929, he resigned, giving three months notice.
With some diffidence I told him about Swallows and Amazons and showed him my half-sheet of paper. ‘That’s all right’ said Napolean Cape. ‘We’ll publish it and pay one hundred pounds on account of royalties. But it’s the essays we want.’
The previous year, Ransome’s new publisher, Jonathan Cape, suggested it was time that he began to put together “some books” to support himself in old age. He had in mind collections of essays. Ransome agreed and began to work on what became Rod and Line.
In April, 1929, he took the completed Rod and Line typescript to Cape. By then he had also drafted over 100 pages of Swallows and Amazons. But he was nervous of showing this to Cape, lest the publisher reject it, so only showed him a brief chapter outline. To his great relief, Cape took one look and said he’d publish it, thus opening the way to the most successful books of Ransome’s career.
Synopsis
Whilst on holiday in a fictionalised Lake District, Four children, John, Susan, Titty and Roger (loosly modelled on the Altounyans) set sail in a borrowed dinghy, the Swallow, to camp on an island. There they meet the Blackett sisters, Nancy and Peggy, the self-styled Amazon Pirates, and have to decide whether to fight each other, or the unfriendly houseboatman, Captain Flint.
