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Arthur Ransome se narodil 18.1.1884 v Leedsu. Byl nejen spisovatelem, ale i novinářem, vědcem, cestovatelem a námořníkem. Proslavil se zejména řadou knih o Vlaštovkách a Amazonkách, kde barvitě líčil zážitky dětí na jezeře i na souši. Zemřel 3.6.1967. Dále cituji ze stránky http://www.arthur-ransome.org/ar/arbio.html Arthur Ransome was born on January 18, 1884, in Leeds, where his father was a Professor of History. His father was a lover of the hills and lakes of Furness, and carried the baby Arthur up to the top of Coniston Old Man (later to become 'Kanchenjunga' in the books) when he was only a few weeks old. Every summer, he took his family by train to Greenodd, complete with their belongings packed into a large tin bath, and then by cart along the valley to Lowick and, finally, to Nibthwaite, on the shores of Coniston Water. The unnamed lake of Arthur Ransome's books is an amalgamation of Coniston and its sister Windermere, but it is on Coniston, close to Nibthwaite, that you will find the promontory where the Swallows planned their first expedition, and Wildcat Island, exactly as drawn in the books. Many of the incidents in the stories are drawn from Ransome's own childhood memories and fantasies - the Knickerbockerbreaker, where his trousers were worn out and darned in situ by Annie Swainson, the tickling of trout, the collecting of fox-moth caterpillars and meetings with the charcoal-burners. It was to be a long time before the memories came to life in Swallows and Amazons and the rest of the books about the children who sailed and explored the lakes and mountains of England. Always fired by ambition to be a writer, Arthur Ransome took his first job with a London publisher and then with the famous newspaper, the Manchester Guardian, for whom he worked for many years as a foreign correspondent. As a young man, Ransome spent many more happy holidays on the shores of Coniston with his friends the Collingwood family. Mr and Mrs Collingwood treated Arthur as a son and he pays them grateful recognition in his autobiography by saying 'My whole life has been happier for knowing them'. He spent hours on Peel Island, which was to become famous all over the world as Wildcat Island, picnicking there with the Collingwood daughters Dora and Barbara. More friends shared Arthur's love of the Lakes and he talks of walks over to Ambleside, stopping at the Drunken Duck for bread and cheese and beer; of Cartmel, where he lodged at a farmhouse called Wall Nook; of more lodgings at Low Yewdale, where water was dipped from a beck running by the cottage and you might easily find a minnow swimming in the jug. He camped a little further up the valley and made friends with a group of gipsies, who taught him their language and customs. Fascinated by languages, he went to Russia and reported at first-hand the events of the Revolution in 1917. He grew to love Russia and its folklore, rewriting many of the ancient fairytales in English, and there he met and married his second wife Evgenia, who was Trotksy's secretary. (Ransome's first marriage was a disaster.) In 1925 the Ransomes bought Low Ludderburn, an old farmhouse at the head of the Cartmel Fell valley with views as far as Ingleborough, in Yorkshire, and Helvellyn in the Lakes. This was by no means retirement - before long Arthur was off to China to report on the volatile political situation there. Much later, the Swallows and Amazons recorded his memories in Missee Lee, where the dragon processions are those he watched parade through the streets of Hankow. So much of Arthur Ransome's life has gone into his children's books. The triangular, square and diamond-shaped signals of Winter Holiday were first used at Low Ludderburn, where he and his fishing friend Colonel Kelsall, who lived across the valley, would invite each other to go fishing. A new home at Pin Mill, Suffolk, taken in the hope that the sea air would improve Arthur's health, provided the settings for We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea and Secret Water. From here, he visited the Norfolk Broads and - of course - sailed there and evolved the stories of Coot Club and The Big Six, with Dick and Dorothea forming the link between the Death and Glory boys and Tom Dudgeon of the Broads, and the Swallows and Amazons in the north. Why are Arthur Ransome's books so enduringly popular? Today's politically-correct might label them as too middle-class, written about privileged children whose parents could afford to take them on long holidays and provide them with boats. But the children who read them come from all walks of life, and don't seem to mind. (And even the p.c.s must concede that the Death and Glories are among Ransome's liveliest creations.) The settings are (with the exception of Missee Lee and Peter Duck) totally British and might be expected to have no appeal at all for readers in other countries. Yet they have been published all over the world and are nowhere more popular than in Japan, from where visitors come to the