This book comprises a collection of stories found by Hugh Brogan among Arthur Ransome's papers. In the unfinished thirteenth "Swallows and Amazons" adventure three young Coots - Joe, Bill and Pete - undergo a hair-raising journey as stowaways from Norfolk to the Lakes. There they encounter the intrepid Nancy Blackett. The other stories include "The Cloudburst", a fishing tale called "Where is Thomas Staunton?", the Baltic sailing mysteries "Two Shorts and a Long" and "The Unofficial Side", the Breton ghost story "Ankou" and an eerie cautionary tale of old Russia called "The Shepherd's Pipe". The text is accompanied by Ransome's own drawings.

Author Biography

Arthur Ransome was born in Leeds in 1884 and went to school at Rugby. He was in Russia in 1917, and witnessed the Revolution, which he reported for the Manchester Guardian. After escaping to Scandinavia, he settled in the Lake District with his Russian wife where, in 1929, he wrote Swallows and Amazons. And so began a writing career which has produced some of the real children's treasures of all time. In 1936 he won the first ever Carnegie Medal for his book, Pigeon Post. Ransome died in 1967. He and his wife Evgenia lie buried in the churchyard of St Paul's Church, Rusland, in the southern Lake District.