Coniston Water G. Collingwood wrote a historical novel "Thorstein of the Mere" about the Northmen who settled on the island in the lake. The Victorian and Edwardian artist Henry Robinson Hall settled in Coniston during the Great War and is buried in the parish church graveyard. Arthur Ransome set his children's novel "Swallows and Amazons" and the sequels "Swallowdale", "Winter Holiday", "Pigeon Post" and "The Picts and the Martyrs" around a fictional lake derived from a combination of Coniston Water and Windermere. The fictional lake resembles Windermere, but the surrounding hills and fells resemble those of Coniston Water. Some of Coniston Water's
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