Pigeon Post

Last updated

Pigeon Post
Pigeon Post cover.jpg
Front cover of first edition
Author Arthur Ransome
IllustratorArthur Ransome
Cover artistRansome
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Series Swallows and Amazons
Genre Children's adventure novel
Publisher Jonathan Cape
Publication date
1936
Media typePrint (hardcover & paperback)
Pages383 pp (first edition)
ISBN 9780224021241
OCLC 634672
LC Class PZ7.R175 Pi [1]
Preceded by Coot Club  
Followed by We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea  

Pigeon Post is an English children's adventure novel by Arthur Ransome, published by Jonathan Cape in 1936. It was the sixth of twelve books Ransome completed in the Swallows and Amazons series (1930 to 1947). He won the inaugural Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising it as the year's best children's book by a British subject. [2]

Contents

This book is the only one of the Swallows and Amazons books which does not feature sailing-related plots: boats appear only in passing, as a mode of transport. All the action takes place on and under the fells surrounding the Lake, as the characters attempt to discover gold in the Lake District hills. [3] [4]

Plot summary

The Swallows, Amazons and Ds are camping in the Blackett family's garden at Beckfoot. The Swallow is not available for sailing. James Turner (Captain Flint) has sent word that he is returning from an expedition to South America prospecting for gold, and has sent "Timothy" ahead. As he can be let loose in the study, the Amazons and D's have already deduced that Timothy is an armadillo, and Titty, Dick and Peggy make a box for him, but he does not arrive. Slater Bob, an old slate miner, tells them a story about a lost gold vein in the fells. As Captain Flint has been unsuccessful in his prospecting trip, the children plan to prospect for gold on High Topps instead, as a surprise for Flint.

When Mrs. Blackett shows doubts, the children prove they can stay in touch with Beckfoot using the homing pigeons that give the book its name, and earn permission to move camp to Tyson's Farm, up near the fells, to be closer to the prospecting grounds. They are disappointed in that Mrs Tyson does not permit them to cook over a campfire, owing to drought conditions and her fear of fires, meaning that they have to keep in time with her meal-schedules. Titty eventually finds a spring by dowsing, and they move closer to the Topps. They send daily messages home by pigeon.

While exploring the ground, they notice a rival prospector whom they call "Squashy Hat". After days of prospecting, Roger finds a seam of gold-coloured mineral in an old mining excavation, and crush enough of it in order to produce a golden ingot in a charcoal furnace. Unfortunately, it disappears when the crucible breaks, and Dick, the expedition's professor, has only a small amount to test. Meanwhile, Squashy Hat is consulting the old slate miner, entering through beneath the fell via an old mine working. Seeing him, the younger three children walk inside the fell, resulting in Titty having to follow them in to look for them, with very nearly fatal results when the tunnel collapses behind them; fortunately they are able to walk out the other end of the tunnel. Christina Hardyment writes that venturing into the Old Level was probably the most idiotic thing that any of Ransome's characters ever did.

Captain Flint returns home, and finds Dick doing chemical tests on the putative gold in his study. Dick has read that gold dissolves in aqua regia, but Captain Flint explains "Aqua regia will dissolve almost anything. The point about gold is it won't dissolve in anything else…". He shows Dick by other tests that they have found copper pyrites, a rich copper ore. [5]

A pigeon named Sappho, whom they had previously labeled as "undependable", suddenly arrives with an urgent message from Titty, FIRE HELP QUICK. Captain Flint rings Colonel Jolys, who musters his volunteer fire fighters, and they all rush to help save the Topps. After the fire on the fells is extinguished (and the grownups see that the children had indeed been entirely responsible with their campfire and therefore had not caused the prairie blaze; it had actually been started a while earlier by some careless motorists who had stopped beside the road for lunch and had dropped a still-lit cigarette), Squashy Hat is revealed to be Captain Flint's friend Timothy, who has been too shy to introduce himself to the children. Captain Flint is pleased to find copper, as he had talked with Timothy above Pernambuco in South America about new ways of prospecting for copper on the fells, and planned to look for copper using new methods not known to the "old miners". Indeed, when the search for gold in South America was unsuccessful, their second plan was to look for the copper in the Topps.

Whilst the mining project is briefly mentioned in Secret Water , the project itself recurs in the later book The Picts and the Martyrs , with Slater Bob turning back to mining for metal instead of slate.

Critical reception

The British Library Association presented Ransome with the inaugural Carnegie Medal at its annual conference in June 1936. Notices in The New York Times recognised that as comparable to the American Newbery Medal. The following month Lippincott of Philadelphia published the first U.S. edition, which Ellen Lewis Buell reviewed for the newspaper in August. She noted the children's "vivid collective imagination which turned play into serious business" and observed, "It is the portrayal of this spirit which makes play a matter of desperate yet enjoyable earnestness which gives their distinctive stamp to Mr. Ransome's books. ... Because he understands the whole-heartedness of youth he can invest a momentary experiment, such as young Roger's Indian scout work, with real suspense." [6]

Dedication

Ransome made use of the mining and prospecting knowledge of his friend Oscar Gnosspelius, who appears in the book as "Squashy Hat" and to whom the work is dedicated. [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur Ransome</span> English author and journalist (1884–1967)

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.

<i>Swallows and Amazons</i> series English childrens book series

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Captain Flint</span> Fictional pirate in Stevensons Treasure Island

Captain J. Flint is a fictional golden age pirate captain who features in a number of novels, television series, and films. The original character was created by the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894). Flint first appears in the classic adventure yarn Treasure Island, which was first serialised in a children's magazine in 1881, and later published as a novel in 1883.

<i>Peter Duck</i> 1932 childrens book by Arthur Ransome

Peter Duck is the third book in the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome. The Swallows and Amazons sail to Crab Island with Captain Flint and Peter Duck, an old sailor, to recover buried treasure. During the voyage the Wildcat is chased by another vessel, the Viper, whose piratical crew are also intending to recover the treasure.

<i>Great Northern?</i> 1947 childrens book by Arthur Ransome

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.

<i>Swallowdale</i> 1931 childrens book by Arthur Ransome

Swallowdale is a children's adventure novel by English author Arthur Ransome and first published by Jonathan Cape in 1931. The book features Walker siblings and Blackett sisters, camping in the hills and moorland country around a lake, with Maria Turner, the Blacketts' Great Aunt, acting as an antagonist. It is the second book in the Swallows and Amazons series; preceded by Swallows and Amazons and followed by Peter Duck.

<i>Swallows and Amazons</i> 1930 childrens novel by Arthur Ransome

Swallows and Amazons is a children's adventure novel by English author Arthur Ransome first published on 21 July 1930 by Jonathan Cape. Set in the summer of 1929 in the Lake District, the book introduces the main characters of John, Susan, Titty and Roger Walker (Swallows); as well as their mother, Mary; and their baby sister, Bridget. We also meet Nancy and Peggy Blackett (Amazons); their uncle Jim, commonly referred to as Captain Flint; and their widowed mother, Molly Blackett. It is the first book in the Swallows and Amazons series, followed by Swallowdale.

<i>Secret Water</i> 1939 childrens book by Arthur Ransome

Secret Water is the eighth book in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. It was published on 28 November 1939.

<i>The Picts and the Martyrs</i> 1943 childrens book by Arthur Ransome

The Picts and the Martyrs is the eleventh book in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. It was published in 1943. This is the last completed book set in the Lake District and features the Blackett sisters, the Amazons and the Callum siblings, Dick and Dorothea, known as the Ds. Ransome's most native character, the Great Aunt also features prominently as do many aspects of Lakeland life. The Dog's Home is based on a small stone hut built in the woods above Coniston Water close to Ransome's then residence.

<i>We Didnt Mean to Go to Sea</i> 1937 childrens book by Arthur Ransome

We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea is the seventh book in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. It was published in 1937. In this book, the Swallows are the only recurring characters. They are staying with their Mother and baby sister Bridget in a new location, Pin Mill on the River Orwell upstream from the ports of Felixstowe and Harwich and are in Suffolk to meet their Father, Navy Commander Ted Walker who is returning overland from a posting in Hong Kong to take up a new posting at Shotley. (In Swallows and Amazons his ship was at Malta but under orders for Hong Kong.

<i>The Big Six</i> 1940 childrens book by Arthur Ransome

The Big Six is the ninth book of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books, published in 1940. The book returns Dick and Dorothea Callum, known as the Ds, to the Norfolk Broads where they renew their friendship with the members of the Coot Club. This book is more of a detective story as the Ds and Coot Club try to unravel a mystery that threatens the Death and Glories' freedom to sail the river. Dorothea names the group of amateur detectives "The Big Six", an allusion to the "Big Five" group of murder detectives at Scotland Yard.

<i>Missee Lee</i> 1941 childrens book by Arthur Ransome

Missee Lee is the tenth book of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books, set in 1930s China. The Swallows and Amazons are on a round-the-world trip with Captain Flint aboard the schooner Wild Cat. After the Wild Cat sinks, they escape in the boats Swallow and Amazon, but are separated in a storm. Both dinghies eventually end up in the lair of the Three Island pirates—Chang, Woo and Lee—where they are held prisoner by the unusual Missee Lee, the leader of the Three Island pirates.

Nancy Blackett is a fictional character in nine of the twelve juvenile novels in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of books. She acts as captain of the dinghy, Amazon and usually directing her friends in their various adventures. Nancy apparently has no real-world counterpart as an inspirational source for Ransome but appears to be completely the author's creation. Nancy is sometimes critically viewed as a subversive character for girl readers. The character appeared in a 1963 BBC television adaptation of Swallows and Amazons as well as in the 1974 and 2016 film adaptations of the book.

Major Oscar Theodor Gnosspelius was an English civil engineer and pioneer seaplane builder.

<i>Swallows and Amazons Forever!</i> British TV series or programme

Swallows and Amazons Forever! is a 1984 BBC children's television series based on two children's novels from the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome: Coot Club (1934), and The Big Six (1940). Despite the title, the Swallows and the Amazons children from Ransome's other books do not appear.

Swallows and Amazons is a 1974 British film adaption of the 1930 novel of the same name by Arthur Ransome. The film, which was directed by Claude Whatham and produced by Richard Pilbrow, starred Virginia McKenna and Ronald Fraser, with Zanna Hamilton. Its budget was provided by Nat Cohen of EMI Films who had funded the successful 1970 film The Railway Children.

Swallows and Amazons is a 1963 BBC children's television series based on the 1930 novel of the same name by Arthur Ransome, about the holiday adventures of two groups of children, the Swallows (Walkers) and the Amazons (Blacketts), sailing on a lake and camping on an island in the Lake District in the 1930s.

<i>Swallows and Amazons</i> (2016 film) 2016 British film by Philippa Lowthorpe

Swallows and Amazons is a 2016 British family adventure film directed by Philippa Lowthorpe and written by Andrea Gibb, based on Arthur Ransome's 1930 children's novel of the same name. The film stars Andrew Scott, Rafe Spall, Kelly Macdonald, Jessica Hynes, and Harry Enfield. Principal photography began on 21 June 2015 in the Lake District. The film, which was released on 19 August 2016, is the third audiovisual adaption of the novel; the first being a 6-part BBC TV series in 1963 and the second a 1974 film version.

References

  1. "Pigeon post" (first edition). Library of Congress Catalog Record. Retrieved 3 November 2012.
  2. (Carnegie Winner 1936). Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  3. Wardale, Roger (1991). Nancy Blackett. London: Jonathan Cape. p. 91.
  4. Hardyment, Christina (1984). Arthur Ransome & Captain Flint's Trunk. London: Jonathan Cape.
  5. Quinan, Adam. "The Chemistry of Pigeon Post". All Things Ransome. Retrieved 12 June 2015.
  6. "The New Books for Boys and Girls", Ellen Buell Lewis, The New York Times, 22 August 1937, p. BR10.
  7. Hardyment (1984) p. 80
Awards
Preceded by
(none)
Carnegie Medal recipient
1936
Succeeded by