 Puffin Books edition, 1974 | |
| Author | Arthur Ransome |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Dmitry Mitrohin |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Folk tales |
| Publisher | T. C. & E. C. Jack |
Publication date | 1916 |
Old Peter's Russian Tales is a collection of Russian and Ukrainian [1] [2] [3] folk-tales retold by Arthur Ransome, published in Britain in 1916.
The first chapter tells of Maroosia and Vanya who live in a hut of pine logs in the forest with their grandfather, the forester Old Peter. Their father and mother are both dead, and they can hardly remember them. Twenty stories told by Old Peter to the children follow, including The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, a story also considered to be Ukrainian. [1]
Ransome says in a note at the beginning that "The stories in this book are those that Russian peasants tell their children and each other", and that it was written for "English children who play in deep lanes with wild roses above them in the high hedges, or by the small singing becks that dance down the grey fells at home".
The book owes its existence to a visit that Ransome paid to the Russian Empire in 1913, partly to learn the language, partly to escape from his first marriage. Ransome's introductory note concludes with the words "Vergezha, 1915"; Vergezha, on the river Volkhov, was where Ransome stayed as a guest of Harold Williams and his wife Ariadna.
Ransome says in his autobiography that the English listeners "know nothing of the world that in Russia listeners and storytellers take for granted". So rather than provide a direct translation of his Russian originals as William Ralston Shedden-Ralston had done in his 1873 Russian Folk Tales, which Ransome had encountered in 1913, he read all the variants of the Russian narratives and then rewrote them in his own words with Old Peter, Vanya and Maroosia substituted for Shedden-Ralston's Ogre, Elf and Imp. Publication of his book was delayed, and he thought that the publishers did not expect to sell more than the 2,000 copies of their initial print run. But by 1956, his sales figures had passed 24,000, and another 25,000 copies were subsequently sold in cheaper British editions and in authorized and pirated editions in the United States. [4]
Hugh Brogan wrote that the book was an "indubitable literary success. It has never been out of print. Arthur Ransome's apprenticeship was over". [5]
Old Peter's Russian Tales was republished by the Arthur Ransome Trust in December, 2016. [6] together with The War of the Birds and the Beasts (renamed The Battle of the Birds and the Beasts at Hugh Brogan's suggestion), thereby creating the first combined edition of Arthur Ransome's Russian folk tales. The new edition includes a new introduction by Hugh Lupton, Arthur Ransome's great-nephew, whose own career as a professional storyteller owes much to Arthur Ransome's Russian folk-tales.
Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist. He is best known for writing and illustrating the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. The entire series remains in print, and Swallows and Amazons is the basis for a tourist industry around Windermere and Coniston Water, the two lakes Ransome adapted as his fictional North Country lake.
The Swallows and Amazons series is a series of twelve children's adventure novels by English author Arthur Ransome. Set in the interwar period, the novels involve group adventures by children, mainly in the school holidays and mainly in England. They revolve around outdoor activities, especially sailing. Literary critic Peter Hunt believes it "changed British literature, affected a whole generation's view of holidays, helped to create the national image of the English Lake District and added Arthur Ransome's name to the select list of classic British children's authors." The series remains popular and inspires visits to the Lake District and Norfolk Broads, where many of the books are set.
William Ralston Shedden-Ralston (1828–1889), known in his early life as William Ralston Shedden, who later adopted the additional surname of Ralston, was a noted British scholar and translator of Russia and Russian.
Hugh Lupton is a British storyteller, one of the most prominent figures in the tradition of oral storytelling.
Sadko is the principal character in a Russian medieval epic bylina. He was an adventurer, merchant, and gusli musician from Novgorod.
Great Northern? is the twelfth and final completed book of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. It was published in 1947. In this book, the three families of major characters in the series, the Swallows, the Amazons and the Ds, are all reunited in a book for the first time since Pigeon Post. This book is set in the Outer Hebrides and the two familiar Ransome themes of sailing and ornithology come to the fore.
The Battle of the Birds is a Scottish fairy tale collected by John Francis Campbell in his Popular Tales of the West Highlands. He recorded it in 1859 from a fisherman near Inverary, John Mackenzie and was, at the time, building dykes on the Ardkinglas estate. Joseph Jacobs took it from there for his Celtic Fairy Tales and added some additional elements.
Coots in the North is the name given by Arthur Ransome's biographer, Hugh Brogan, to an incomplete Swallows and Amazons novel found in Ransome's papers. Brogan edited and published the first few chapters as a fragment with a selection of Ransome's other short stories in 1988. The story starts in the Broads but continues in the Lake District after the Death and Glories hitch a ride aboard a boat being delivered to the Lake in the North.
The Firebird and Princess Vasilisa is a Russian fairy tale collected by Alexander Afanasyev in Narodnye russkie skazki. It is one of many tales written about the mythical Firebird.
Gagana is a miraculous bird with an iron beak and copper claws featured in Russian folklore. She is said to live on the Buyan Island. The bird is often mentioned in incantations. It is also said this bird guards the Alatyr, alongside Garafena the snake.
The Norka is a Russian and Ukrainian fairy tale published by Alexander Afanasyev in his collection of Russian Fairy Tales, numbered 132.
The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship is a children's picturebook illustrated by Uri Shulevitz that retells an Eastern European fairy tale of the same name. The text is taken from Arthur Ransome's version of the story in the 1916 book Old Peter's Russian Tales; Ransome had collected the folktale when he was a journalist in the Russian Empire. The book was released in 1968 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and won a Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1969.
Denis Hugh Vercingetorix Brogan known as Hugh Brogan, was a British historian and biographer.
The Fiend or The Vampire is a Russian fairy tale, collected by Alexander Afanasyev as his number 363. The tale was translated and published by William Ralston Shedden-Ralston.
Bohemia in London (1907) was Arthur Ransome's seventh published book, and his first success. The book is about literary and artistic London in the 1900s, and the area of London covered is Chelsea, Soho, and Hampstead. He had moved to London in 1901, and first lived in Chelsea. It was published by Chapman and Hall in late September 1907. An American edition was published by Dodd, Mead of New York in 1907, who also published it in Canada under the imprint of the Musson Book Co of Toronto. A "slightly bawdy" ballad had to be omitted for North America. A second edition was published by his new publisher Stephen Swift Ltd in 1912, before Granville absconded. A new edition was published by the Oxford University Press in 1984.
Russian Fairy Tales, or Russian Folk Tales may refer to :
The Sea Tsar and Vasilisa the Wise is a Russian fairy tale published by author Alexander Afanasyev in his collection of Russian Fairy Tales, numbered 219. The tale features legendary characters Tsar Morskoi and Vasilisa the Wise.
The Swan Queen is a Lithuanian fairy tale related to the character of the swan maiden. In the tale, a peasant couple find a swan or goose and bring it home, which transforms into a human girl they adopt as their daughter. After her birdskin is destroyed and she marries a human prince, her bird flock gives her a new set of garments and she turns back into a bird.
The Flying Ship, is an East Slavic or Eastern European folk tale, considered a Ukrainian folk tale in some collections, as well as a Russian folk tale in others. In retellings, it is also called The Ship That Flew, Fool of the World and the Flying Ship, and The Fool and the Flying Ship.
Old Peter's Russian Tales public domain audiobook at LibriVox