Inspirational Quotes by Arthur Ransome (English Novelist, Journalist)

Arthur Ransome (1884–1967,) fully Arthur Mitchell Ransome, was an English novelist and journalist. He is best known for the Swallows and Amazons series (1930–47,) idyllic children’s novels set in the English countryside that set the pattern for “holiday adventure” stories.

Born the son of a history professor in Leeds, West Yorkshire, Ransome was educated at Rugby, where he was a poor scholar and, because of bad eyesight, inept at games. He worked as an errand boy in a publishing house before graduating to ghostwriting and reviewing and writing short stories, meanwhile living a bohemian existence. His first book of significance, Bohemia in London (1907,) is a partly autobiographical account of this period. He later became a reporter for the Daily News and, in 1919, for The Manchester Guardian.

Ransome was widely traveled and, having learned Russian in 1913, was sent to cover the Revolution. He reported on the economic problems and famine gripping the country and was soon conducting exclusive interviews with Trotsky and Lenin. Ransome married Trotsky’s secretary Evgenia Petrovna Shelepina, who fled from Russia, staying for a while in Estonia before settling in the Lake District. Ransome’s connection with the leaders of the Revolution led to him providing information to the Secret Intelligence Service. Still, the Special Branch and MI5 also suspected him of being a Soviet spy.

Ransome had been a published author for a quarter of a century before the appearance of Swallows and Amazons (1930,) the first of twelve perennially popular novels featuring two families of adventurous but responsible children, the Blacketts and the Walkers, who spend their school holidays reveling in the open air, free from the cramping attention of adults.

Ransome’s notable works include Old Peter’s Russian Tales (1916) and The Autobiography of Arthur Ransome (1976.)

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