Talk:Arthur Ransome

Untitled
From the article "Ransome won the suit but his wife's behaviour during the trial added to the stress on their marriage. Ransome left his wife and went to Russia in 1913 to study folk lore." What did his wife do? That statement leave you with unquenched curiosity, but may be i am just too nosy. Would enrich the article neverthless

I've watched the BBC programme "An awfully big adventure, Arthur Ransome" and in it Hugh Brogan, who wrote Ransome's 1993 biography, says that respectable women did not attend libel cases to hear the arguments at that time and that she enjoyed receiving the attentions of the journalists reporting the case.MidlandLinda (talk) 21:14, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Ransome has become very popular in countries such as Japan and Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic),

First off, Czechoslovakia is not "now the Czech Republic"; Czechoslovakia split into two separate states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Is Ransome's popularity spread across both countries, or is it confined to just one of them? In a discussion of his modernday popularity there's no need to mention a country that hasn't existed for fifteen years, so the sentence should either read, "such as Japan, the Czech Republic and Slovakia", "such as Japan and the Czech Republic" or "such as Japan and Slovakia". Binabik80 (talk) 05:28, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Providing a source for the information and matching the text to it would solve the problem. Who says this? --Old Moonraker (talk) 08:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The Arthur Ransome website says that he has been published in both Czech and Slovak, though they were originally one country when the first books were published there. Here is an on-line paper about the Czech translations Arthur Ransome in Czech. This website of book covers seems to indicate that all the titles have been published in Czech but only three in Slovak, though there may be others which aren't listed there. Again all the books were translated and published while Czechoslovakia was a country. It appears that he was published in Czechoslovakia and is more popular in the Czech Republic today. Its one of the problems of history, how do you describe an event that occurred in a country which has since split up. He wasn't originally published in the Czech Republic but in Czechoslovakia. He remains more popular in the Czech translation, presumably in the current Czech Republic, though there are still plenty of Czech speakers and readers in the modern day Slovakia. Dabbler (talk) 10:10, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Russian Wikipedia cited as source
In this edit a user has replaced a reference from an external print source with a reference to ru:wikipedia. This seems not to accord with the WP:SPS policy "Articles and posts on Wikipedia... may not be used as sources" and I propose to restore the print source, subject to other editors' views --Old Moonraker (talk) 12:31, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Changed back. --Old Moonraker (talk) 19:24, 3 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I just removed a similar "reference", this time inserted in addition to the existing but still no more than a link to the ru wiki. Nancy  talk  12:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I have also left a note on the editor's talk page. Nancy  talk  12:30, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks—perhaps I should have done that. --Old Moonraker (talk) 12:34, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Swallow Island
Perhaps mention should be made that "Swallow Island", of which there are endpaper maps in "Swallows and Amazons", is in fact a real place - Horsey Island, near Walton-on-the-Naze.Colcestrian (talk) 00:06, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The Secret Water article locates the setting as Hamford Water, the broad inlet containing Horsey Island, but doesn't mention the island itself. Wild Cat Island, mapped on page 12 of Swallows and Amazons, is largely Peel Island, Cumbria. --Old Moonraker (talk) 05:56, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that Peel Island is partly a source for Wild Cat but it is by no means the only source. Really only the Secret Harbour and the view of the island from a distance come from Peel Island. Ransome is said to given Blakeholme on Windermere as another origin but I have not seen that so can't confirm. Dabbler (talk) 11:24, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The trouble with Blake Holme is that it's only a dozen yards from the shore and hasn't got the secret harbour, although it's about the right distance down the lake from "Rio". --Old Moonraker (talk) 11:57, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not suggesting that any particular island is Wild Cat but that Wild Cat, like the Lake and other aspects of the Lake books geography, is not based on any one original but on composites of places that Ransome knew in the area. The Broads books and Secret Water and We didn't mean to go to sea are all much more geographicaly anchored to real places. Dabbler (talk) 13:26, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Ransome's security file from The National Archives
This is an abstract only, needing payment for full access and thus possibly at odds with WP:ELNO. Views? --Old Moonraker (talk) 11:36, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

"In the pay of the Foreign Office"
I have added a tag, for the supposed "citation" as much as anything. The dealings with the FO have been examined most carefully by biographers, and IFAICR none of them has mentioned money. Please bring a WP:RS if this is to be kept.--Old Moonraker (talk) 22:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:RS found for an aspect of Ransome's relationship with the FO and used to replace the above. Again: if it can be sourced, bring it back. --Old Moonraker (talk) 10:19, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Slovakian Ransome Society?
Do you have a reference for the Slovakian Ransome Society? I know there is a Czech one but didn't think there was a Slovakian one. As far as i know the books were only translated into Czech. Dabbler (talk) 00:26, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Hugh Walpole
I've used a quotation from Hugh Walpole as a source for "best children's writer", so it's just as well to acknowledge that the two men were friends, and my print reference is from an advert paid for by Ransome's then publisher. By way of balance, the other source is provided by a well-known children's writer, school librarian and director of a rival publishing firm. Anyone do better? --Old Moonraker (talk) 13:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

20th-century British children's literature
This article is now on my watchlist after revising it yesterday on a pass thru all Carnegie Medal winners. I see that it is in Category: 20th-century British children's literature, which is new to me.

Which biographies and books articles should be in this category?

Having recently visited perhaps 100 of 200 articles on Carnegie and Greenaway Medal-winners, I know that very very few have been categorized by nationality-cross-time, only by time and nationality separately. Before revisiting such articles I'll try to remember to try to discuss ;-) categorization at WP UK and Children's literature.

P.S. I see the category was renamed "20th-century" from "1900-1949" only a year ago. That must be a partial explanation for little Carnegie/Greenaway overlap. --P64 (talk) 15:30, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Most widely held in libraries
WorldCat reports that Ransome's work most widely held by participating libraries is The fool of the world and the flying ship; a Russian tale (1968) --a posthumous edition of one story from Old Peter's Russian tales (1916)..

The reported margin for this one above all his other works is enormous, much greater than I have seen elsewhere (now close to 50 authors and illustrators, mainly British). No doubt the primary reason for its wide dissemination is that Uri Shulevitz won the U.S. Caldecott Medal for illustrating this 48-page book. Nevertheless we should probably mention this book in the biography, which we do not yet.

The counts for Ransome's other works are low. I suppose the explanation lies in some combination of [a] relatively unreliable WorldCat data for Ransome in his prime because library digitization is rather incomplete for "old" books; [b] perceived parochial nature of the Swallows series, with limited international appeal to libraries; [c] rather limited international library holdings of most books published before the 1950s. (Ransome's early "Russian" books rank high on his list but their counts are not high.) --P64 (talk) 19:53, 4 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Here is an abridged version of Ransome's "top twenty"
 * twelve volumes of Swallows and Amazons (#2 to 19)
 * five "Russian" books (#1, 3, 4, 5, #14) of which two are posthumous picture book(?) editions of stories in #5
 * #11. Oscar Wilde : a critical study by Arthur Ransome (1912)
 * #15. The autobiography of Arthur Ransome by Arthur Ransome (1976) --posthumous
 * #20. A night in the Luxembourg by Remy de Gourmont (1900), Preface and appendix by Arthur Ransome (1912)
 * --P64 (talk) 20:09, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Middleton connection
Isn't this rather tenuous - to say the least. Might have a place in an article about Middleton family but the connection with ransome is so slight that surely it doesn't belong here? 212.159.44.170 (talk) 10:38, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Middleton ref should stay; Kate Middleton's grandfather - Captain Peter Middleton  -  reportedly shared a governess with the Ransome  family and  was  a respected sailor  himself down Norwich way. No doubt he  enjoyed sailing with his Ransome relatives.  His grandfather had called his house in Leeds "Rockland" - after Rockland St Mary in Norwich?  Kate Middleton also reportedly  loves to sail. Strong enough connection methinks.101.182.23.36 (talk) 06:00, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 08:21, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Duchess of Cambridge grandmother's governess
I'm not sure that this lady, governess to Ransome's second cousin's children as well, has any place in this article. I'm proposing to apply WP:TOPIC and remove her. Furthermore, it's cited to the gossip column of the Daily Mail, which is specifically deprecated as a Wikipedia source.--217.155.32.221 (talk) 14:27, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry: I just noticed that this was brought up a couple of years ago but received no support. I'll try again, subject to the views of other contributors.--217.155.32.221 (talk) 14:35, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * OK, No disagreement? Implementing.--217.155.32.221 (talk) 09:55, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:38, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Mitrohin Old Peter's Russian Tales.jpg

Cheadle Royal Hospital
The article gives this establishment as Ransome's place of death and it's in Brogan (1984), p.433. All other references on the web may have been picked up from here. However CRH was, and is, a mental hospital. Anyone know more?--AntientNestor (talk) 14:17, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
 * No, I'm wrong. GRO records confirm that it was the CRH. Apologies. At the time it was private mental hospital, so it's still a bit of a mystery.--AntientNestor (talk) 08:56, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Although: at the time it was offering care of "ageing related mental health problems.".--AntientNestor (talk) 09:27, 26 April 2022 (UTC)