Product Description
This new edition of Racundra’s First Cruise includes the original maps, text and photos from the 1923 first edition, of which only 1500 copies were printed.

The book also contains a detailed introduction detailing Ransome’s Baltic sailing in Slug and Kittiwake and includes unpublished articles and essays together with many original Ransome pictures and present day photographs of the area.

The manuscript has been researched, edited and introduced by Brian Hammett, who received critical acclaim for his work on Racundra’s Third Cruise. Details of Racundra’s life after Ransome are also included. It has the full support of Ransome’s literary executors who are delighted to see it republished. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Nostalgia, saltwater, the towns of the Baltic coast in the 1920's
I have a Penguin edition of 1956 without all the additional material of this new edition. But the basic story is the same.

This is a charming narrative of a cruise in a well-built little sailboat, in waters of the Baltic countries, to places the author clearly knows and loves.

Arthur Ransome later wrote a series of children's books focused on sailing. He would certainly have agreed with Kenneth Grahame's "Ratty" that ""There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats." One might qualify that, noting that in Ransome's books, the sailing is rather more directed and purposeful - but he always communicates the sheer joy of being on the water in a craft that responds to the elements, at your direction (He was not a fan of engines of any kind - a sometimes necessary evil. Sailing was the thing.)

"Racundra's First Cruise" was published in 1923. He had commissioned the building of Racundra, a thirty-foot ketch built for seaworthiness and comfort inside. With the "Ancient Mariner" - an old veteran of the days of sail in clipper ships - and "Cook" - probably the companion who was to become his second wife, but only identified by her unending task - he takes us through many sometimes tricky passages along the Baltic coast, visiting old cobblestoned towns and remote peasant villages.It is delightful to sink back into a time when the sea was still full of trading vessels under sail, though of course large and small steamers also abounded. Mentions of "during the war" refer of course to the Great War. Relics of older conflicts abound - Russian, Swedish, Latvian, Finnish, Estonian - and Ransome provides many interesting footnotes to their stories.

My favorite encounter is that with the enigmatic man who lives alone, building a ship, in the forest. The ship is at first seen as "a golden hull in the shadows among those tall trees" then we see that "the upper planking was new, certainly, ruddy gold where the sun caught it, but lower down her hull was weathered"...."The keel, laid on great stones, was joined to them by moss. There was lichen upon it, and on the foot of the stern-post was a large, bright cluster of scarlet toadstools."

Enjoy.

cruising
Great little book - takes you back to a different, simpler, world.You don't have to be a sailor to enjoy this.

A book that has all the ingredients for a marvellous movie
I wonder why Hollywood has not yet discovered this book: it has all the ingredients for a box-office hit - sailing in the Baltics, scenic sea- and landscapes, a romantic love affair of a British writer and the private secretary of Leon Trotsky. And the background - the Russian revolution, Estonia's struggle for independence. Rare photos illustrate the book. A must for the romantic sailor! ... Read more

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Publisher: London : T.C. ... Read more

Product Description
An effort to trace Poe's thought by discussing in the most convenient order his various activities or groups of ideas. The author endeavors to strike a balance between Poe's practice and his theory. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Coots in the North
This book is an important reference for Arthur Ransome readers.It contains an introduction and very useful background information about Ransome and his books. A few of Ransome's short stories (some previously published), and just a few chapters of what would have been Ransome's last book are patched together from old typescripts, rough notes and sketches.

The book "Coots in the North" has a good beginning, a fairly rough (in my opinion) ending, and nothing in the middle.I can't see how this could have been made into a book.Ransome left an Author's Note about how he came to write "Swallows and Amazons" that the book almost wrote itself.That was not the case here.

Cliff

A great insight into what might have been
Only a 9 because, alas the work is unfinished.The Death and Glory's stow away in a lorry carrying a motor cruiser to the north.Awaiting them is the D's.They get this far and out on the lake, but AR never got any farther.
Still wonderful to read and imagain ... Read more

Product Description
The biography of one of the century's most enduringly popular children's writers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Living Life to the Hilt
This is a a very special book for people of "a certain age." I'm not at all sure that anyone under fifty would really appreciate its richness in conjuring up a life lived at the turn of the century -- Ransome was born in the 1880s -- by a nearsighted young English lad consumed with the idea that he was destined to become a writer. His incredible understated oddessy includes being at ground zero during the Russian revolution -- knowing all the major characters including Lenin and Trotsky -- learning to sail in fair weather and foul, and living a life of real hardship to becoming a celebrated author of one of the best series of children's books ever written -- The Swallows & Amazon books. His narration of the "Bohemian Life" of his day, the cast of characters of noted literary and political figures, his comments on what it meant to be educated in his world and time, made the book, for me, a vivid portrait of a world and value system that has, I fear, gone with the wind. A fine read. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1888.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

Product Description
A prolific 20th century author, editor, critic, reviewer and foreign correspondent, Author Ransome is considered one of the most important English children's writers between the wars.This first comprehensive bibliography describes in detail the various editions of the books he wrote and to which he contributed.Hammond cites more than 1,500 contributions by Ransome to newspapers and magazines, including his sometimes controversial reports from Russia during Wold War I and the rise of the Bolsheviks. ... Read more

Product Description
THIS IS A NEW, UNPUBLISHED, ARTHUR RANSOME STORY.

It describes a sailing cruise in Latvia with his new wife Evgenia (formerly Trotsky’s secretary) up the Aa River, from Riga to Mitau and back.  A classic Ransome story, it is illustrated with his own photos.

Swallows and Amazons is responsible for more people taking up sailing that any other book.  Arthur Ransome’s style is unique and appeals to children and adults alike.

The book was collated by Brian Hammett from Ransome's (often hand-written) manuscript, and a foreword puts the book in perspective. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1909.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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An Enchanting Collection of lettres from the writer ... Read more

Product Description
Finally! Here is the twelfth, and final, book in Arthur Ransome's acclaimed Swallows and Amazons series. People familiar with his earlier work will recognize the pattern: children set out on an adventure (this one off the coast of Scotland) with a minimum of parental advice and interference. Here, the story centers on a desperate race to thwart the efforts of pernicious egg collectors threatening the survival of a pair of rare birds not previously known to nest in British waters (actually, the bird is the handsome North American "Great Northern Diver," more commonly called a loon). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A bittersweet finale to the series
The Swallows, the Amazons, and the D's are all sailing in the Scottish isles when Dick Callum makes a fairly significant discovery...a Great Northern Diver (known in the US as the common loon) is actually nesting in the British Isles, where they're not known to nest.Dick turns to another bird person who operates another boat, only to find that this fellow is an egg-collector who seeks to kill the birds and raid the nest.Thus follows an exciting adventure across the Highlands, with plots, counterplots, and a spanner thrown in the works by locals who fear the crew are deer-poachers.

This novel is a fun adventure and also a look at a shift in views toward naturalism.We have the old-school naturalist in the form of the egg-collector, and the new school in the form of Dick, who seeks only to observe and document and leave the birds alone.A strong environmental message permeates this book, set in 1934 and written in 1947.Egg-collecting (oology) was banned in England not long after this was published, and is also now illegal in the US.(There is debate among series fans if this is a "fantasy" entry like PETER DUCK or MISSEE LEE, or a "real" entry like the rest; I opt for the latter.)

And while it's a good send-off for the characters, it was not meant as such.Ransome had another adventure in the works, COOTS IN THE NORTH, that was unfinished and the fragments have been published in an anthology, now sadly out of print.Ransome was convinced into letting the series lapse, which is a tragedy, but readers can let themselves imagine where the series could have led from here.

Superb
This book from the 1930s or 40s starts with a group of kids sailing in the Hebrides with Uncle Jim -- the uncle of two of them -- at the end of their cruise. They stop to spend a day taking care of the borrowed boat -- cleaning the bottom and putting on a new coat of bottom paint -- and while the older ones are doing this, the younger ones explore. One of them goes birdwatching, and sees something unusual.

Sounds pretty dull, right? Wrong. Like all the Ransome (non-fantasy) books, the bad-guy in this book -- an egg-collector -- is completely plausible AND horrible. The multiple story lines are all intriguing. The respect for decent behavior (cleaning the bottom of someone else's boat? Making sure to bury a bit of waxed paper from your sandwich...in 1935??? Respecting property ... not disturbing wildlife ... Passing behind a sailboat when you're in a faster motorboat...) isn't drilled in with a ham-handed holier-than-thou-ness; it's just part of what you get when you read the book. You also get a terrific adventure, a fingernail-biting crisis and denoument (remember when denoument was part of a good story?), humor, character, and a feeling of the Hebrides that you just don't forget.

If your kids don't like this book, keep the book and throw the kids in the trash. ... Read more

Product Description
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free.This is an OCR edition with typos.Excerpt from book:PETROGRAD TO MOSCOWThere was, of course, a dreadful scrimmage about getting away. Several people were not ready at the last minute. Only one motor was obtainable for nine persons with their light luggage, and a motor lorry for the heavy things. I chose to travel on the lorry with the luggage and had a fine bumpity drive to the station, reminding me of similar though livelier experiences in the earlier days of the revolution when lorries were used for the transport of machine guns, red guards, orators, enthusiasts of all kinds, and any stray persons who happened to clamber on.At the Nikolai Station we found perfect order until we got into our wagon, an old third-class wagon, in which a certain number of places which one of the party had reserved had been occupied by people who had no right to be there. Even this difficulty was smoothed out in a manner thatwould have been impossible a year or even six months ago.The wagon was divided by a door in the middle. There were open coupes and side seats which became plank beds when necessary. We slept in three tiers on the bare boards. I had a very decent place on the second tier, and, by a bit of good luck, the topmost bench over my head was occupied only by luggage, which gave me room to climb up there and sit more or less upright under the roof with my legs dangling above the general tumult of mothers, babies, and Bolsheviks below. At each station at which the train stopped there was a general procession backwards and forwards through the wagon. Everybody who had a kettle or a coffee-pot or a tin can, or even an empty meat tin, crowded through the carriage and out to get boiling water. I had nothing but a couple of thermos flasks, but with these I joined the others. From every carriage on the train people poured out and hurri... ... Read more