Arthur Ransome is renowned
for his series of children’s novels written between 1929 and 1947, probably the
best known of which is his first, “Swallows and Amazons”. However, his life
story was also something of a mystery adventure, but of a very different kind
from that depicted in his novels.
His early life
Arthur Michell Ransome
was born in Leeds on 18th January 1884. His father, who died when
Arthur was 13, was professor of history at the Yorkshire College, which would
become Leeds University in 1904. Arthur was the eldest child of the family of
two boys and two girls.
He was educated at Old
College, Windermere (thus giving him an early acquaintance with the Lake
District) and Rugby School, but he did not shine academically. He was
determined to become a writer, and at the age of 17 headed for London where he
got a job with a publishing firm.
For the next twelve
years he gained a living of sorts from writing articles, reviews and stories
and mixed with a number of literary figures including Lascelles Abercrombie and
Edward Thomas. When he could afford the train fare he took himself off to the
Lake District, which was where he felt most fulfilled. He got to know the
Collingwood family and enjoyed camping and sailing with them. He hoped to marry
one of the Collingwood daughters, but this was not to be.
Instead, he married Ivy
Constance Walker on 13th March 1909. This proved to be a mistake,
and it was partly to escape from this unhappy marriage that he journeyed to
Russia in 1913. Another reason was that he had become involved in a libel suit
brought by Lord Alfred Douglas in respect of Ransome’s book “Oscar Wilde: A
Critical Study” (Douglas had been the lover of Oscar Wilde and the cause of
Wilde’s own trial and disgrace). Although Ransome won the case, the experience
had disturbed him and he preferred to try his luck elsewhere.
In Russia
He had the idea that he
could use Russian folk tales as the basis for stories of his own, and, once in
Russia, he set about learning the language and collecting folklore. The result
was “Old Peter’s Russian Tales”, published in 1915. In the meantime he accepted
a post as correspondent in Petrograd (St Petersburg) for the Daily News, and he
settled in Russia until 1919, only making occasional visits back to London.
These were tumultuous
years for Russia as the Bolshevik Revolution overthrew the Tsar and Lenin
established the world’s first Communist government. The view from London was
that Ransome was becoming a Bolshevik himself, writing in complimentary terms
about Lenin and opposing foreign interference. However, it has since emerged
(as late as 2002) that Ransome was in fact being paid by MI6 to infiltrate the
Russian government and send reports back to his London masters, who were
seeking means to defeat the revolution.
While in Russia,
Ransome met Yevgeniya Petrovna Shelepina, who had been
Trotsky’s secretary, and he married her in 1924 when his first marriage was
dissolved.
In 1919 he ended his connection with the Daily News but was
recruited by the Manchester Guardian instead. Based in Estonia, he reported for
ten years on events in Russia and also indulged his passions for fishing and
sailing. C P Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian, later sent him to Egypt
and China, but Ransome eventually tired of this work and returned to Britain
with a desire to start writing on his own account.
The Lake District and writing
He bought a cottage near Lake Windermere and renewed his
friendship with the Collingwood family, who had now produced a new generation
with whom he spent much of the summer of 1928, teaching the four children of
Dora Collingwood (now Altounyan) to sail in their dinghy, named “Swallow”.
In March 1929 he started writing “Swallows and Amazons” which
was published the following year. Sales were slow, as they were for his second
book starring the same characters, “Swallowdale”. However, the third novel,
“Peter Duck” (1932) was very well received and Ransome’s name was made. He
illustrated this book himself, and did so for the remaining nine novels.
New characters and locations were introduced, such as the Norfolk
Broads (“Coot Club”) and the Outer Hebrides (“Great Northern?”). His 1941 novel
“Missee Lee” takes the original Swallows and Amazons (the two families named
after their boats) to China.
The themes of sailing and birdwatching predominate in his
books, but there is less mention of his third great passion, which was fishing.
This was left mainly to his “Country Diary” column in the Guardian.
Although the final
novel in the series (“Great Northern?”) was published in 1947, Arthur Ransome
had planned another, which was left unfinished at his death in 1967. It was published, as “Coots in the North” in
1988 in its incomplete state, together with some short stories that had also
been found among his papers.
His last completed
published work was “Mainly About Fishing”, produced in 1959. He died in
Manchester on 3rd June 1967, at the age of 83.
His legacy
Although Arthur Ransome
will always be remembered as a friendly, easy-going man with a florid
complexion and a huge handlebar moustache, who got on well with everyone
especially children, there are still questions about what he was actually doing
during those years before the “Swallows and Amazons” novels were written. There
is a suggestion, for example, that he and his Russian wife were engaged in
diamond smuggling between Russia and Paris, with the proceeds going to Stalin’s
Soviet Union. Those sailing trips from Estonia may not just have been for
recreational purposes.
Even if Arthur Ransome
did lead a double life, the stories he left behind him cement his reputation as
one of the great writers for children. The books tend to be lengthy for
children’s novels, but they hold the attention well and are excellently crafted
and written. Despite being up to 80 years old they have not dated as much as
might be expected. After all, sailing dinghies still work the same way, birds
still fly, and places like the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads are as
beautiful and mysterious as they always were.
© John Welford
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