Like a father, Arthur Ransome is fond of all his characters. Other children (and adults), such as the Blackett sisters, who are the Amazon pirates of the lake, and their fearsome/fun uncle, Captain Flint, sometimes take part in the group play, helping to shape the adventures. The four older Walker children act out the roles of a traditional nuclear family, with patriarchal Captain John (ship’s master) and maternal Susan (first mate) providing a secure environment in which their younger siblings, Able Seaman Titty and Ship’s Boy Roger, can develop their own competence.

Group play is an important aspect of their adventures.

Together they create their own adventures, on small sailboats, exploring an island, camping, seeking treasure, solving small mysteries. “It seems to me,” he wrote, “that in writing children’s hooks I have the best of childhood over again and the best of being old as well.” The best of childhood, he perceived, was the holidays, and in his books the characters are left alone to enjoy their holidays as they choose. The success of his first books enabled him to spend the rest of his life in the Lake District, where he continued the series, fulfilled at last. There he met Trotsky’s secretary, who later became his wife. Arthur Ransome’s career as a journalist took him, among other places, to revolutionary Russia. In school, he recalls, he was “extremely miserable.” When he was thirteen, his father died and the family no longer vacationed at the lake, although in his twenties he spent some time there with a family who provided models for some of his fictional characters. His success was due at least in part to his vivid recollection of the ingredients of childhood happiness, but his own childhood was not all joyful. Arthur Ransome’s childhood summer holidays in northern England’s Lake District led him, much later in his life, to write Swallows and Amazons (1930), the first of his popular series, “ Swallows and Amazons,” of twelve books for children.

Arthur ransome author