Arthur Ransome Books in Order

Ransome's only full length original novel outside the Swallows and Amazons books is a Gothic romance about a young man who encounters an alchemist claiming to have discovered an elixir of life, and discovers how a quest for immortality can demand a terrible human price.

Long hidden and published decades after it was written, this early critical study finds Ransome reading Robert Louis Stevenson as a working writer, analysing his adventure tales and travel books and reflecting on how Stevenson's methods might shape his own later fiction.

A lively verse retelling of the familiar Aladdin story, this version keeps the magic lamp, cavern and princess but turns the tale into rhyming stanzas, making the adventures of Aladdin and his troublesome genie easy to read aloud.

Based on a tale first told in Old Peter's Russian Tales, this picture book follows an old couple who shape a daughter from snow and briefly enjoy her company, only to learn that love measured against comfort and small bargains can cause a magical child to vanish.

Nine Russian fairy tales retold in Ransome's clear style, this collection features fiery birds, sea kings, clever peasants and fearsome witches, offering slightly longer, more elaborate stories that balance adventure with the melancholy and humour of traditional village storytelling.

Compiled after Ransome's death from his typescript, this sequel describes a leisurely inland honeymoon voyage up the river from Riga to Jelgava in Racundra, lingering over quiet anchorages, river towns and the pleasures of small boat cruising with his new wife.

Selected and edited by Hugh Brogan, this volume of letters follows Ransome from apprentice writer through his Russian years and on into the heyday of Swallows and Amazons, revealing his private voice, friendships, doubts and delight in boats, landscapes and stories.

An anthology built around the fragmentary novel Coots in the North, in which the Death and Glories travel from the Norfolk Broads to the Lake District, accompanied by additional short pieces about sailing, fishing, Russian peasants and an unfinished Victorian style river story.

This posthumous collection brings together some of Ransome's darker Russian folk tales, including the title story, 'The Soldier and Death' and several others in which peasants, soldiers and talking animals face hard bargains, cruel twists of fate and occasional, grim humour.

Drawn from his angling columns, this classic of fishing literature gathers fifty essays about rivers, tackle and the pleasures of casting, combining practical observation with humour and quiet philosophy in prose many readers cherish as much as any of his fiction.

Edited from his unfinished manuscript, this autobiography follows Ransome from his Leeds childhood through London literary circles, Russian travels, journalism and sailing in the Baltic, ending just after the publication of Peter Duck and offering frank snapshots of his early life.

Subtitled 'Studies in the development of narrative', this survey follows storytelling from medieval romances through Cervantes, the great eighteenth century novelists and later writers such as Poe and Flaubert, tracing how different techniques changed the way stories are told.

In this critical biography, Ransome traces Edgar Allan Poe's troubled life and examines his major poems and tales, showing how themes of horror, obsession and intricate structure grew from his circumstances and helped shape later detective and fantastic fiction.

This picture book retells a Russian fairy tale about a simple young man who builds a flying ship, gathers a band of odd companions with extraordinary talents and sets out to win a princess, only to find that kindness and patience matter as much as magic.

A later companion to Rod And Line, this collection of essays ranges from Victorian fly tyers to Ransome's own blue elver fly, mixing riverside stories, reflections on salmon and trout, and affectionate comments on the quirks of anglers and angling literature.

On a cruise in the Outer Hebrides with Captain Flint, the Swallows, Amazons and Ds discover what may be the nest of a very rare diver, then clash with an unscrupulous egg collector as they race to protect the birds without wrecking local loyalties.

This slim volume gathers six of Ransome's favourite Russian folk tales for children, including stories of the Firebird, the minstrel Sadko and the witch Baba Yaga, offering a mix of quest, magic and trickery in brisk, readable retellings.

When the Amazons' formidable Great Aunt descends on Beckfoot, Dick and Dorothea hide in a stone hut in the woods as secret 'Picts' while Nancy and Peggy endure being turned into respectable 'Martyrs', all four juggling woodcraft, spying and narrow escapes from discovery.

On a round the world voyage in the Wild Cat, the Swallows, Amazons and Captain Flint are shipwrecked off the South China coast and captured by the Three Island pirates, where the scholarly Missee Lee, their unexpected leader, prefers Latin lessons and ceremony to simple ransom.

Back on the Norfolk Broads, Dick and Dorothea join Tom and the Death and Glories to investigate a string of boats mysteriously cast adrift, forming the 'Big Six' detective club and using notebooks, cameras and quiet observation to clear their friends of blame.

Marooned with a dinghy in the maze of tidal creeks known as Secret Water, the Swallows and Amazons turn their stay into a surveying expedition, mapping islands, keeping a log and negotiating truces and rivalries with local children who see themselves as native tribes.

While staying on the River Orwell, the four Swallows help moor the cutter Goblin and are invited for a short sail, but fog, a dragging anchor and rising wind carry them unexpectedly into the North Sea, where their seamanship and nerve are tested in heavy weather.

During a hot, dry summer in the Lake District, the Swallows, Amazons and Ds camp high on the fells to search for a lost mineral vein, relying on homing pigeons for messages while dealing with water shortages, rival prospectors and the constant risk of moorland fire.

On the Norfolk Broads at Easter, Dick and Dorothea learn to sail with Tom Dudgeon and his Coot Club friends, who patrol the rivers to protect nesting water birds and find themselves pursued by a noisy party of holidaymakers whose cruiser they have secretly set adrift.

Stranded at the lake over a frozen winter, the Swallows and Amazons befriend new arrivals Dick and Dorothea and turn the ice into an Arctic expedition, building igloos, sledges and signal posts until a blizzard and a missed message turn play into a dangerous rescue.

On board Captain Flint's schooner Wild Cat, the Swallows and Amazons join old sailor Peter Duck on a treasure hunt to distant Crab Island, racing a villainous rival crew through storms, sharks and earthquakes in a full blooded seafaring adventure imagined by the children.

Back at the lake for a second summer, the Swallows and Amazons lose their beloved dinghy in an accident and are forced to explore ashore, discovering a hidden valley they name Swallowdale while outwitting the fearsome Great Aunt who wants the pirates tamed.

During a summer at an English lake, the Walker children sail the dinghy Swallow, befriend local sisters Nancy and Peggy with their boat Amazon, and turn camping on Wild Cat Island into a full-scale pirate campaign against the mysterious Captain Flint.

Drawn from his reporting trips to China in the 1920s, this book examines British policy, the rise of the Kuomintang and the tensions between Chinese nationalists, foreign powers and ordinary workers and peasants, turning complex politics into vivid travel narrative.

Ransome's sailing classic recounts a six week autumn voyage in his small yacht Racundra across the Baltic from Riga to Finland and back, celebrating careful seamanship, changing weather and the quiet companionship of his two crew on little visited coasts.

In this dark, often humorous folk tale retold from Russian tradition, a discharged soldier receives magical cards and a sack, outwits devils in an abandoned palace and even traps Death itself, only to discover that a world without dying brings new troubles.

A follow up to his earlier reporting, this study analyses the economic and political crisis in Russia around 1920, focusing on shortages of goods and labour, the Communist Party's attempts at reconstruction and what those struggles might mean for the rest of Europe.

Based on his diary from a brief return to revolutionary Russia, this book offers an on the ground account of Moscow and Petrograd in 1919, describing shortages, political debates and everyday life as the new Soviet state struggled to survive.

Written during the Russian Revolution, this short pamphlet sets out Ransome's eyewitness picture of Soviet Russia and appeals to American readers to judge events for themselves, explaining the Bolsheviks, the civil war and the choices facing the new republic.

Framed by evenings in a forest hut where Old Peter tells stories to his grandchildren Maroosia and Vanya, this classic collection retells twenty Russian folk tales full of witches, wolves, foolish peasants and flying ships in clear, conversational English.

This essay collection looks at nineteenth century writers and critics, from Aloysius Bertrand and Alphonse Daudet to Nietzsche and Walter Pater, as Ransome examines the slogan 'art for art's sake' and argues instead for art that deepens our sense of lived experience.

Ransome's critical study of Oscar Wilde combines a brisk biographical sketch with close readings of Wilde's plays, fiction and essays, exploring how his ideas about art, style and self invention developed and how his public downfall shaped later views of his work.

An unusual early collection of Ransome's short fiction, this volume gathers several fantastical and reflective pieces that circle around art, imagination and desire, blending everyday settings with hints of myth and the uncanny.

Like its companion volume 'The Book of Friendship', this anthology gathers essays, poems, aphorisms and brief prose pieces on love in many forms, from romance to family affection, arranged for dipping into rather than straight through reading.

An anthology of essays, poems, maxims and short prose passages about friendship, selected and arranged by Ransome from writers across many centuries, offering reflections on loyalty, companionship and quarrels in a compact bedside or gift book.

Part memoir and part guidebook, this portrait of early twentieth century London wanders through Chelsea, Soho, Fleet Street and Hampstead, capturing the cafés, studios and shabby lodgings where writers, artists and would be bohemians argued, dreamed and tried to earn a living.

Written for children, this companion to Ransome's other nature books explores a single garden in close detail, introducing birds, insects, flowers and small animals while encouraging curiosity, quiet observation and a sense of wonder in everyday outdoor life.

Through the eyes of two children, the Imp and the Elf, this gentle nature book follows spring, summer, autumn and winter in the English countryside, inviting young readers to notice flowers, weather and small creatures as each season arrives.

Following the Imp and the Elf beside ponds, ditches and streams, this natural history book for children explains the busy world of tadpoles, minnows, insects and water birds, showing how to watch, paddle and build small dams without harming the wildlife.

An early collection of sketches and essays about life in turn of the century London, this volume looks closely at street traders, narrow courts and working families, mixing social observation with sympathy for people surviving on the margins.