Arthur Ransome Books In Order

Publication Order of Swallows and Amazons Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Children's Books

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Arthur Ransome
Arthur Michell Ransome was born January 18, 1884 in Leeds, and was an English journalist and author. He was the oldest of four kids: with two sisters (Joyce and Cecily) and a brother named Geoffrey who got killed in the First World War in the year 1918. Arthur’s dad was a history professor at Yorkshire College, and his dad’s premature death in 1897 had a long lasting effect on him.

His mother did not want him to abandon his other studies to focus solely writing but was still supportive of his books, urging him to publish The Picts and the Martyrs in 1943, despite Evgenia hating it. She was often discouraging about his novels as he was writing them.

Arthur was educated first in Windermere, then Rugby School, where he lived in the exact same study room which Lewis Carroll used, however he didn’t wholly enjoy the experience because of his lack of athletic skill, poor eyesight, and limited academic achievement.

He later studied chemistry at Yorkshire College, but in 1902, he abandoned the chemistry degree he was working toward so that he could become a publisher’s office boy in London. Arthur used this rather precarious existence to work on his writing, producing many minor works before “Bohemia in London” (published in 1907), which is a study of London’s artistic scene and his first significant work. Arthur also was an editor at a failing magazine, called Temple Bar Magazine, as he established himself as a member of the literary scene.

Other early work includes The Nature Books for Children, a series of kids’ books that Anthony Treherne commissioned. Only half of the planned volumes got released before the publisher went bankrupt. Now, they’re available on the All Things Ransome website.

In 1913, he left his wife and daughter to go to Russia in order to study its folklore, and published a novel called “The Elixir of Life” in 1915, which was meant to be his only full length novel, apart from his Swallows and Amazons books.

After World War One started in 1914, he became a foreign correspondent and covered the war for The Daily News, a radical newspaper, on the Eastern Front. Additionally he covered the Russian Revolutions in 1917 and came to sympathize with the Bolshevik cause, becoming close to a number of its leaders, including Karl Radek, Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky. It was during this time that he met his second wife, Evgenia, who was working as Trotsky’s personal secretary at the time.

Late in the 1920s, he had settled in the Lake District after choosing not to accept a job as a full time correspondent with The Guardian newspaper. Instead, he wrote “Swallows and “Amazons” in the year 1929, with the Walker kids (the “Swallows”) in the novel in part on the Altounyan family. This novel, and the sequels, made him the leading children’s writer of his time.

He had a long standing friendship with the mom of the Altounyans, and their Collingwood Grandparents. But Arthur only denied the connection, having been upset that people didn’t regard his characters as original creations, and claimed he just gave the Altounyans’ names for his characters.

He won the first Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognizing “Pigeon Post” (from Ransome’s “Swallows and Amazons” series) as the year’s best kid’s book by a British subject. Durham University made him an honorary Master of Arts and Leeds University made him an honorary Doctor of Letters in the year 1952. He got appointed CBE in the following year.

He married twice, first in 1909 to Ivy Constance Walker, with whom he had Tabitha Ransome. Which was not a happy marriage, with her wanting him to spend less time writing and be with her and their daughter which was a great strain on him, and the couple divorced in 1924. That same year, he married to Evgenia Petrovna Shelepina, with whom he is buried in the same grave with.

He died at the age of 83 on June 3, 1967 in Greater Manchester, England while in the hospital. Arthur is buried in the churchyard of St. Paul’s Church, Rusland, Cumbria, in the southern Lake District.

“Swallowdale” is the second novel in the “Swallows and Amazon” series and was released in the year 1931. The Blackett and Walker kids survive a shipwreck, find a secret cave and valley, and go on quite the thrilling mountain hike.

While on summer holiday, the Swallows (Roger, John, Titty, and Susan Walker) and the Amazons (Peggy and Nancy Blackett) meet on Wild Cat Island. Unfortunately, the Amazons have got a problem: their Great Aunt Maria’s come for a visit and she demands that the Amazon pirates need to act like “young ladies”. Things just get worse once the Swallows find a very tall hill just begging to be climbed.

How the Amazons escape from the Great Aunt, arrange a meeting, and mount up an expedition to sleep underneath the stars on the summit makes for a rather satisfying and exciting tale.

Resourcefulness, friendship, and sailing, too; these books have stood the test of time. More than mere fantastic tales, each of them celebrates initiative and independence with a large and colorful cast of characters.

“Peter Duck” is the third novel in the “Swallows and Amazon” series and was released in the year 1932. The Swallows and the fearsome Amazon pirates sail the high seas, outwitting one pirate and his cutthroat crew, some sharks, along with the ravenous creatures of Crab Island to find some buried treasure.

It all starts when Peter Duck, who is an elderly sailor that was once marooned on an island out in the Caribbean, tells a story to the Swallows and Amazons. It is a story about buried treasure and, unfortunately, when the kids set out to find it, the pirate Jake, who is captain of the Viper, follows them.

Across the Atlantic Ocean, through the fog, a hurricane, some threats from Jake, and an earthquake once they land, the Swallows and Amazons have to locate the treasure, evade all the pirates, and get back home safely to England.