Arthur Ransome in Russia - 1916-1918



Arthur Ransome and Karl Radek

(From http://www.visitcumbria.com/ransome.htm
and
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSradek.htm)


The Autobiography of Arthur Ransome goes a long way towards explaining why the Swallows and Amazons books are a cut above the normal children's fare. Arthur Ransome was so obviously used to handling deeply complex political situations that dashing off a simple but compelling story was easy. The introduction by Rupert Hart-Davis (The father of Adam Hart-Davis) suggests that Ransome used to write individual chapters of the books out of sequence which makes it clear that he had the whole story mapped out before he started and just had to get the descriptive stuff sorted. AR was also a folklorist so he was used to reasearching Children's stories anyway which is part of the reason he was in Russia during the revolution. Actually, if the recent tales of his MI6 involvement areto be believed, this was his cover. I get the sense that most of the foreign diplomats he met wondered why he was travelling with Karl Radek. Apparently this led to some accusations of him being traitor but these have been dispelled by the recent revelations.