Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Arthur (Michell) Ransome, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 3426 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Product Description
This reproduction was printed from a digital file created at the Library of Congress as part of an extensive scanning effort started with a generous donation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.The Library is pleased to offer much of its public domain holdings free of charge online and at a modest price in this printed format.Seeing these older volumes from our collections rediscovered by new generations of readers renews our own passion for books and scholarship. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Nostalgia, saltwater, the towns of the Baltic coast in the 1920's
I have a Penguin edition of 1956 without all the additional material of this new edition. But the basic story is the same.

This is a charming narrative of a cruise in a well-built little sailboat, in waters of the Baltic countries, to places the author clearly knows and loves.

Arthur Ransome later wrote a series of children's books focused on sailing. He would certainly have agreed with Kenneth Grahame's "Ratty" that ""There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats." One might qualify that, noting that in Ransome's books, the sailing is rather more directed and purposeful - but he always communicates the sheer joy of being on the water in a craft that responds to the elements, at your direction (He was not a fan of engines of any kind - a sometimes necessary evil. Sailing was the thing.)

"Racundra's First Cruise" was published in 1923. He had commissioned the building of Racundra, a thirty-foot ketch built for seaworthiness and comfort inside. With the "Ancient Mariner" - an old veteran of the days of sail in clipper ships - and "Cook" - probably the companion who was to become his second wife, but only identified by her unending task - he takes us through many sometimes tricky passages along the Baltic coast, visiting old cobblestoned towns and remote peasant villages.It is delightful to sink back into a time when the sea was still full of trading vessels under sail, though of course large and small steamers also abounded. Mentions of "during the war" refer of course to the Great War. Relics of older conflicts abound - Russian, Swedish, Latvian, Finnish, Estonian - and Ransome provides many interesting footnotes to their stories.

My favorite encounter is that with the enigmatic man who lives alone, building a ship, in the forest. The ship is at first seen as "a golden hull in the shadows among those tall trees" then we see that "the upper planking was new, certainly, ruddy gold where the sun caught it, but lower down her hull was weathered"...."The keel, laid on great stones, was joined to them by moss. There was lichen upon it, and on the foot of the stern-post was a large, bright cluster of scarlet toadstools."

Enjoy.

cruising
Great little book - takes you back to a different, simpler, world.You don't have to be a sailor to enjoy this.

A book that has all the ingredients for a marvellous movie
I wonder why Hollywood has not yet discovered this book: it has all the ingredients for a box-office hit - sailing in the Baltics, scenic sea- and landscapes, a romantic love affair of a British writer and the private secretary of Leon Trotsky. And the background - the Russian revolution, Estonia's struggle for independence. Rare photos illustrate the book. A must for the romantic sailor! ... Read more

Product Description
Arthur Ransome began to fish as a boy in the Lake District, but the pursuit became almost an obsession when he lived in Russia during World War I and reported the Revolution and its aftermath for the "Daily News" and the "Manchester Guardian". When he returned to England with Trotsky's secretary as his wife, he settled in Lakeland and began his four-year weekly column "Rod and Line" for the "Guardian", stopping only to write the twelve Swallows and Amazons books for children which made him famous. Although he published a few of these and other fishing essays in two books, "Rod and Line" and "Mainly about Fishing", most of his writing and broadcasting on the subject has never appeared in book form. Jeremy Swift's book not only tells for the first time of Ransome's fishing adventures - in exotic places with men of history or by small English streams with unknown, eccentric fellow countrymen - but it rescues many of Ransome's fishing articles from the oblivion of the archive shelf. ... Read more

Product Description
A prolific 20th century author, editor, critic, reviewer and foreign correspondent, Author Ransome is considered one of the most important English children's writers between the wars.This first comprehensive bibliography describes in detail the various editions of the books he wrote and to which he contributed.Hammond cites more than 1,500 contributions by Ransome to newspapers and magazines, including his sometimes controversial reports from Russia during Wold War I and the rise of the Bolsheviks. ... Read more

Product Description
THIS IS A NEW, UNPUBLISHED, ARTHUR RANSOME STORY.

It describes a sailing cruise in Latvia with his new wife Evgenia (formerly Trotsky’s secretary) up the Aa River, from Riga to Mitau and back.  A classic Ransome story, it is illustrated with his own photos.

Swallows and Amazons is responsible for more people taking up sailing that any other book.  Arthur Ransome’s style is unique and appeals to children and adults alike.

The book was collated by Brian Hammett from Ransome's (often hand-written) manuscript, and a foreword puts the book in perspective. ... Read more

Product Description
This book investigates the 'series' in children's literature. The work of several well-known children's authors, both American and British, traditional and contemporary, are analyzed, and using these examples the book explores the special nature and appeal of series writing for children. ... Read more