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1Old Peter's Russian Tales

By Arthur Ransome

Arthur Ransome is best known for his <i>Swallows and Amazons</i> series of children’s books. This is the only example of his fiction in the public domain. These stories are all from Russian folklore, some comparatively well-known, others less so. Ransome spent some years in Russia as a newspaper correspondent for the <i>Daily News</i> and the <i>Manchester Guardian</i> and was peripherally involved in the revolution. In the late twenties he married Evgenia Shvelpina, Trotsky's secretary, retired from newspapers and started writing his children’s books. (Summary by AJM)

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: On August 27, 1914, in London, I made this note in a memorandum book: "Met Arthur Ransome at_____'s; discussed a book on the Russian's relation to the war in the light of psychological background--folklore." The book was not written but the idea that instinctively came to him pervades his every utterance on things Russian. The versatile man who commands more than respect as the biographer of Poe and Wilde; as the (translator of and commentator on Remy de Gourmont; as a folklorist, has shown himself to be consecrated to the truth. The document that Mr. Ransome hurried out of Russia in the early days of the Soviet government (printed in the New Republic and then widely circulated as a pamphlet), was the first notable appeal from a non-Russian to the American people for fair play in a crisis understood then even less than now. The British Who's Who--that Almanach de Gotha of people who do things or choose their parents wisely--tells us that Mr. Ransome's recreations are "walking, smoking, fairy stories." It is, perhaps, his intimacy with the last named that enables him to distinguish between myth and fact and that makes his activity as an observer and recorder so valuable in a day of bewilderment and betrayal. - Summary by B. W. Huebsch

3Child's Book Of The Seasons

By Arthur Ransome

This book is part of the author’s "Nature Books For Children" series (three books), which is probably the best indication of its target audience and subject matter. The book is fun and charming, even for adults. Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist who had a reputation as one of the best English writers of children's books. “When we think of sowing seeds we think of Spring with the new corn green on the red ground, and when we think of Spring we think of Summer, when it is tall and wavy in the wind, and when we think of Summer we think of Autumn when the corn is golden and cut, and then, why, then we come to Winter again.” - Author's quote and david wales

4Pond And Stream

By Arthur Ransome

This book is part of the author’s "Nature Books For Children" series (three books), which is probably the best indication of its target audience and subject matter. The book is fun and charming, even for adults. Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist who had a reputation as one of the best English writers of children's books. “This is a book about the things that are jolly and wet: streams, and ponds, and ditches, and all the things that swim and wriggle in them. I wonder if you like them as much as they are liked by the Imp and the Elf? You know all about the Imp and the Elf, do you not? Those two small jolly children, who live in a little grey house in a green garden, and know the country and all the things in it, almost as well as they know each other? The Imp and the Elf love everything that is wet. They paddle in the streams, and build dams, and make waterfalls, and harbours, and sail boats, and do all the other things that every sensible person wants to do.” - Author's description and david wales

This book is part of the author’s "Nature Books For Children" series (three books), which is probably the best indication of its target audience and subject matter. The book is fun and charming, even for adults. Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist who had a reputation as one of the best English writers of children's books. - Summary by david wales

Acclaimed British author Arthur Ransome presents us with a small collection of charming and wistful sketches on the character of the street, a song's journey through the ages, the strange and coy nature of a rose and other short essays on the little things that add up to something big. (Summary by Ben Tucker)