Arthur Ransome Arthur Ransome Arthur Michell Ransome (18 January 1884 – 3 June 1967) was an English author and journalist. He is best known for writing the "Swallows and Amazons" series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. The books remain popular and "Swallows and Amazons" is the basis for a tourist industry around Windermere and Coniston Water, the two lakes Ransome adapted as his fictional North Country lake. He also wrote about the literary life of London, and about Russia before, during, and after the revolutions of 1917. His connection
Swallows and Amazons series remainder of his books himself. In 1938, he drew his own pictures for "Swallows and Amazons" and "Swallowdale" to replace Webb's. Ransome's pictures were done in pen and ink with no colour, although colours have been added by some publishers in later editions. Typically, figures in the pictures are shown from the back, though there are some which show the faces of a few of the characters. Taqui Altounyan, the oldest of the children to whom the first edition of "Swallows and Amazons" was dedicated, recalls that "He shirked drawing faces and got over that difficulty with back views of