Winter Holiday (novel) Winter Holiday (novel) Winter Holiday is the fourth novel of Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons" series of children's books. It was published in 1933. In this story, the third set of major characters in the series, the Ds — Dick and Dorothea Callum—are introduced. The series' usual emphasis on boats and sailing is largely absent, as the story is set in the winter. Instead, the children's activities focus on ice skating, signalling with semaphore and Morse code, and sledging. Ransome draws on his schoolday memories of the Great Frost of 1895 when Windermere froze completely. Another major influence is Fridtjof
Swallows and Amazons series published works, however, are presented simply as continuing adventures in the series, though different in a number of ways. Most obvious is the inclusion of fear and violence (which is mostly absent from rest of the series) and the extended voyages would have taken the children from school for unacceptably long periods. Both books are described on their title pages as "based on information supplied by the Swallows and Amazons", a description which is absent from the rest of the books in the series. Two abandoned chapters of "Peter Duck" (called "Their Own Story") were found in Ransome's papers held