Arthur Ransome was born in Leeds, UK, on 18th Jan 1884. As a small boy he had holidays around Coniston, Cumbria, and attended preparatory school in Windermere, which gave Ransome an early taste for Lakeland. After completing his education, he worked in London, coming North whenever he could.
He became a friend of W.G. Collingwood, writer artist and secretary to John Ruskin. Ransome's favourite childhood book was W.G. Collingwood's Thorstein of the Mere, which was set around Coniston.
After an unsuccessful marriage, he went to Russia, where he met his future wife Evgenia Petrovna Shelepina, who had been Trotsky's secretary. In 1924 he retuned to The Lake District and apart from two periods when he went South, he lived in Cumbria for the rest of his life, finding inspiration and settings for his best known book - Swallows and Amazons.
Arthur Ransome died on 3rd June 1967, and his grave is in St Paul's Church, Rusland.
Information on Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons" series of books, with links to on-site and off-site information on the books, his life, the locations and identities featured in his writings. humboldt1.com/ar
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