Swallows and Amazons : the man behind this timeless story
Swallows and Amazons is a series of twelve novels, wrote during the 20th century by Arthur Ransome. During the 1930s in England, a family goes on holidays in the north of the country, to the Lake District. The four children, John, Roger, Tatty and Susan, jump on a sailing ship, the Swallow, to discover the mysterious island in the center of the lake.
Swallows and Amazons are set in the 20th. There wasn’t air travel, internet nor mobile phones. This story is as relevant today as it was before. His insights into childhood imagination and play are timeless. We, readers, are still able to find ourselves in his characters’ emotions, aspirations and failings. We learn the values of hard work, co-operation, common sense, mutual respect and the acquisition of skill when they combat adversity and fulfill their work. Their attitudes are modern, democratic and meritocratic.
These novels have inspired generations of explorers, like Ellen MacArthur, a famous British sailor. It’s because of these books that a service was created to organize youth sailing cruises on the Norfolk Broads. The cruises are still existing today, and at the beginning of the 21st century, over 30,000 children had taken part.
Arthur Ransome novels’ changed British children’s literature, a whole generation’s view of holidays, created the national image of the Lake District, and made him become a classic British children’s author.
Ransome was born in the 19th century. During his living, he wrote forty books, contributed for many more and also wrote for newspapers, like the Manchester Guardian. He loved fishing and sailing, especially in the Lake District. Added to children’s literature, he made contributions to sailing writing, literary criticism and political journalism.
A charity named Arthur Ransome Trust (ART) was created to help people discover and enjoy Ransome’s fascinating life and works. They also want to create a Ransome Center in the Lake District, which was his spiritual home. His novels touched many topics : sailing, camping and fishing, but also geology, astronomy, conservation, exploration, social history, bird protection and much more. They believe that a dedicated center will help the books continue to inspire the next generations, like they’ve been shaping lives and careers for the past 80 years. The charity already started working by republishing some of Ransome’s works and developing the Swallows and Amazons app.
If you want to know the story of Swallows and Amazons, you can read the twelve books, or watch the movie adaptation out since 2016. To discover more about Arthur Ransome, you can read some of his other works, or go to the Arthur Ransome Trust’s site to get information, and maybe it will be you the next explorer in the Lake District !
Nina Morante
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