ARTHUR RANSOME Master Storyteller
Book Details
Author(s)
Roger Wardale
Publisher
Great Northern Books
ISBN / ASIN
B00BOZJ7EU
ISBN-13
978B00BOZJ7E5
Sales Rank
#1,401,019
Marketplace
United States 🇺🇸
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Description
ARTHUR RANSOME
Master Storyteller
by Roger Wardale
Forewords by A.N.Wilson and Adam Hart-Davis
The story of how a master craftsman, who excelled in the sublime art of storytelling, created twelve timeless novels:
Swallows and Amazons
We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea
Swallowdale
Secret Water
Peter Duck
The Big Six
Winter Holiday
Missee Lee
Coot Club
The Picts and the Martyrs
Pigeon Post
Great Northern?
Many are those whose lives have been shaped by reading the ‘Swallows and Amazons’ series:
Clare Francis, the famous yachtswoman, was inspired by the books.
Dame Ellen MacArthur took up sailing after reading them. She is now the Patron of the Nancy Blackett Trust, which owns and operates Ransome’s yacht, Nancy Blackett.
David Bellamy, the naturalist, comments: ‘Arthur Ransome set me on the road to becoming a botanist. By the time I was fourteen, I’d read all his books and saved up so that I could go to the Lake District to camp and learn to sail. It tipped me towards natural history.’
Arthur Ransome’s delightful adventure series, ‘Swallows and Amazons’, has captured the imagination of children and adults alike ever since publication began in 1930. Today, over eighty years later, the series remains as popular as ever.
Well over five million copies have been sold in the English language alone. They remain among the most highly acclaimed books in children’s literature, and thousands of tourists are attracted to places in the Lake District, the Broads and the Hebrides that are so faithfully depicted in the stories.
Ransome once described writing books for children as like reliving the best part of childhood, but this was far from the whole truth. His genius as a storyteller stemmed from an almost infinite capacity for painstaking perfectionism. Once Ransome had completed the first draft, he would then settle down to write a complete revision and the most difficult chapters were written over and over again.
Using primary sources, including letters, diary entries and Ransome's working notes, Roger Wardale pieces together a fascinating narrative. He relates how the twelve ‘Swallows & Amazons’ books came to be written against the odds over seventeen demanding years. It is an amazing story of a dedicated writer battling against the problems of ill health, a critical and argumentative wife, his own perceived shortcomings and an expectant publisher.
Roger Wardale’s wonderfully illustrated account provides a new look at the enduring ‘Swallows and Amazons’ series, and how and why the books came into being. It is a must-read for every Ransome fan.
Master Storyteller
by Roger Wardale
Forewords by A.N.Wilson and Adam Hart-Davis
The story of how a master craftsman, who excelled in the sublime art of storytelling, created twelve timeless novels:
Swallows and Amazons
We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea
Swallowdale
Secret Water
Peter Duck
The Big Six
Winter Holiday
Missee Lee
Coot Club
The Picts and the Martyrs
Pigeon Post
Great Northern?
Many are those whose lives have been shaped by reading the ‘Swallows and Amazons’ series:
Clare Francis, the famous yachtswoman, was inspired by the books.
Dame Ellen MacArthur took up sailing after reading them. She is now the Patron of the Nancy Blackett Trust, which owns and operates Ransome’s yacht, Nancy Blackett.
David Bellamy, the naturalist, comments: ‘Arthur Ransome set me on the road to becoming a botanist. By the time I was fourteen, I’d read all his books and saved up so that I could go to the Lake District to camp and learn to sail. It tipped me towards natural history.’
Arthur Ransome’s delightful adventure series, ‘Swallows and Amazons’, has captured the imagination of children and adults alike ever since publication began in 1930. Today, over eighty years later, the series remains as popular as ever.
Well over five million copies have been sold in the English language alone. They remain among the most highly acclaimed books in children’s literature, and thousands of tourists are attracted to places in the Lake District, the Broads and the Hebrides that are so faithfully depicted in the stories.
Ransome once described writing books for children as like reliving the best part of childhood, but this was far from the whole truth. His genius as a storyteller stemmed from an almost infinite capacity for painstaking perfectionism. Once Ransome had completed the first draft, he would then settle down to write a complete revision and the most difficult chapters were written over and over again.
Using primary sources, including letters, diary entries and Ransome's working notes, Roger Wardale pieces together a fascinating narrative. He relates how the twelve ‘Swallows & Amazons’ books came to be written against the odds over seventeen demanding years. It is an amazing story of a dedicated writer battling against the problems of ill health, a critical and argumentative wife, his own perceived shortcomings and an expectant publisher.
Roger Wardale’s wonderfully illustrated account provides a new look at the enduring ‘Swallows and Amazons’ series, and how and why the books came into being. It is a must-read for every Ransome fan.
