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The Arthur Ransome Society, also known by its acronym Tars, and whose members refer to themselves as Tars , is a society whose goals are to "celebrate the life, promote the works and diffuse the ideas of Arthur Ransome". [1] It is based at the Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal, England. Arthur Ransome is best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books in the 1930s and 1940s.
In 1984, Christina Hardyment had written an account of her own investigations into the real-life places and real-life people in Arthur Ransome's stories. As a direct result of this book, Arthur Ransome and Captain Flint's Trunk, [2] people interested in forming a society dedicated to Arthur Ransome had been leaving their contact details at Abbot Hall, where, following his death in 1967, his widow Evgenia had donated various articles, including his writing desk. In 1989, Christina followed up on these contact details by sending an appeal for funds to restore the dilapidated Mavis, the supposed prototype for Arthur Ransome's Amazon. The response to this appeal was overwhelming and in June 1990 The Arthur Ransome Society was formed.
A particularly large sum came from the Arthur Ransome Club (ARC) of Japan. The ceremony was attended by Christina Hardyment, Tamami Nakayama of ARC and Brigit Sanders (née Altounyan), a prototype of the character Bridget Walker. Brigit Sanders was President of TARS from 1990 until her death in 1999.
In 1997, the society was incorporated as a Company Limited by Guarantee.
TARS produces several regular publications, holds many recreational and scholarly events and maintains a Ransome-themed website. TARS has a wide international membership base which includes branches in Australia, Canada, US, Japan and New Zealand. In the UK there are 6 different regions: Scottish, Northern, Midland, Eastern, South Western and Southern, each with its own leadership committee. They also organize local events which are open all members. Every year one region in the UK takes its turn to host the International Annual General Meeting (IAGM).
TARS has a subsidiary, Amazon Publications, which publishes both original books and reprints of books associated with Ransome. Not to be confused with Amazon Publishing, Amazon Publications publishes books relating to Arthur Ransome and his works, available to TARS members only.
The Arthur Ransome Society has a substantial physical library of books and other materials, most of which are available for borrowing by members.
There are strong links with the Arthur Ransome Club in Japan but no formal association.
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.
Nancy Blackett is a 28-foot (8.5 m), 7-ton, Bermuda rigged sailing cutter built in 1931. The boat is now owned and operated by The Nancy Blackett Trust.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. He won the inaugural Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising it as the year's best children's book by a British subject.
Swallows and Amazons is a children's adventure novel by English author Arthur Ransome and 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Peel Island is one of the three islands of Coniston Water in the English Lake District, Cumbria. The two others are Fir Island and Oak Island. It is most famous for being one of the inspirations for Arthur Ransome's Wild Cat Island. Today, it is a popular tourist destination, and belongs to the National Trust.
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.
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 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.
Christina Hardyment is a British writer who has written on a wide range of subjects including parenting, food, gardens, children's books, domestic life, and British history.
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