Children's literature R. M. Ballantyne and G. A. Henty specializing in the production of adventure fiction for boys. This inspired writers who normally catered to adult audiences to write for children, and an example is Robert Louis Stevenson's (1850–94) classic pirate story "Treasure Island" (1883). In the years after the First World War, writers such as Arthur Ransome (1884–1967) developed the adventure genre by setting the adventure in Britain rather than distant countries. Ransome began publishing in 1930 his Swallows and Amazons series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the English Lake District and the Norfolk Broads.
Swallows and Amazons Altounyan connections, changing the initial dedication of "Swallows and Amazons" and writing a new foreword which gave other sources. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 57 on the BBC's survey The Big Read. The artist chosen for the first edition of the book was Steven Spurrier, but Ransome objected to his style and so the first edition did not have any illustrations. Spurrier's drawing for the dust jacket had to be used. The second edition contained drawings by Clifford Webb but after Ransome successfully illustrated "Peter Duck" himself, he decided to do his own drawings for all the