Winter Holiday
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Information about Winter Holiday, (1933), by Arthur Ransome.
Winter Holiday (1933), is Arthur Ransome’s 28th published book. This page includes information on its publication, availability, background and contents.
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First Publication
Published by Jonathan Cape November, 1933.
Availability
In print.
Hardback: Jonathan Cape ISBN 978-0224606349
Paperback: Red Fox ISBN 978-0099427179
E-book: Random House Children’s Books (from 30 June, 2011)
Also available as an abridged audiobook (Gabriel Woolf)
Background
‘Dark at tea-time and sleeping indoors. Nothing ever happens in the winter holidays.’
One of Ransome’s most treasured childhood memories was the Great Frost of 1985, when Windermere froze from end to end. The lake froze again in 1929, and once more crowds flocked to skate and party on the ice. Ransome had also met, and been hugely impressed by, the Norwegian explorer Fridjof Nansen, whilst living in Stockholm in 1918. Together these experiences inspired Winter Holiday, his fourth Swallows and Amazons novel.
Ransome took something of a risk with this novel, introducing two new characters to the Swallows and Amazons’ world. They proved to be a master stroke. Brother and sister, Dick and Dorothea Callum (soon known as the “D’s”) are two expressions of Ransome’s own character: Dick, a bespectacled and inquisitive scientist, Dorothea a budding romantic novelist. They are a contrast to the more practical Swallows and Amazons and, as town children, characters whom many of Ransome’s readers could relate to.
Synopsis
Viewed primarily from the D’s perspective, Winter Holiday takes place six months after Swallowdale. The Swallows and Amazons are planning a tame expedition to the North Pole when illness extends their holiday in the coldest winter for thirty years.
