Indrajit Bose
Abstract: Arthur Ransome,
appearing towards the closing phase of the ‘golden age’ of children’s
illustrated books, gave us, in his Swallows and Amazons series for children, a
complete and artistically rendered world through his illustrations. Ransome
illustrated his own stories, drawing both full-page illustrations of people and
places, and miniature sketches of the natural world and objects as chapter
terminations. Though not a professional
illustrator, Ransome was able to give his readers a full picture of the English
natural world which has proved to have had an enduring legacy in children’s
fiction.
It would be perhaps a
truism to say that illustrations are an integral part of our reading experience
of children’s literature. Well illustrated books kindle that imaginative spark
in children that the authors are trying to foster through their writing. From
Beatrix Potter’s pictures of a rural English Eden with animals leading a cozy
country life, to the riverside pictures of Ratty and Mole in The Wind in the Willows, to the sketches
of Pooh and Piglet bivouacking in the Hundred Acre Wood, generations of child
readers have grown up adoring and fantasizing over these pastoral idylls of
matchless beauty. And the images have
endured over time; many adults remember with affection the beautiful
illustrations of E. H. Shephard in Pooh
or Potter herself. The turn of the century was not only rich in the literature
for children it produced, but it was also the veritable golden age of
illustrated children’s books. It was the conjoint efforts of the authors and
illustrators that together recreated a potent paradigm of the visible world in
a fictional fantasy universe. 
Especially potent and enduring were the
pictures of an English countryside and country life which continued to be the
defining image of Englishness in children’s imagination all over the world.
These pictures really represent an idealization of rural England that was to
persist particularly in the genre of the adventure story long after much of
England had changed indescribably after the Second World War. In the long
series of Swallows and Amazons books (1930—47) by Arthur Ransome, of course,
this image of England and Englishness is especially predominant. What is even
more to Ransome’s credit is that the books are drawn and illustrated by Ransome
himself—no mean feat if we consider the fact that the series covers twelve
books. Ransome not only gave us gripping tales of juvenile adventure figuring
children with whom we can identify, but also immortalized the landscape of the
Lake District and the Norfolk broads through the descriptions and sketches in
his stories. It is to these drawings and sketches that we must turn to appraise
his contribution to the genre of the illustrated children’s adventure story. 
Speaking historically, of course,
Ransome and his illustrations antedate what is referred to as the ‘golden age
of children’s book illustrations’, including the work of illustrators like John
Tenniel and Kate Greenway, Ernest Shephard, Arthur Rackham, Jessie Wilcox-Smith,
Edmund Dulac, Arthur Robinson and others. This period, extending roughly from
the 1880s to the 1930s, saw the unprecedented growth and development of
illustrations in children’s books. There were beautiful illustrations, both
colour and black-and-white sketches, executed with artistic finesse, of people,
objects, places and settings. There were woodcuts, engravings and
chromolithographs. This period also coincided with a simultaneous development
in printing technology. Though the human figures were beautifully executed,
they often had esoteric qualities, as the illustrators often drew for books of
fairy tales and legends, like the stories of Hans Christian Andersen, as well
as for more realistic subjects like the novels of the Bronte sisters. There
were also elements of the fin de si├иcle,
with wavy, billowing hair, fantastical cloudscapes and colourful arabesques.
Often, there were animals with humanized traits, or allegorical personages. The
tradition of the adventure story—often describing the exploits of a group of children—was,
by contrast, far more realistic. It is to this tradition that Arthur Ransome
belongs.
Ransome was not a
professional artist and illustrator, he was a journalist, and correspondent of
the Daily News during the Revolution
in Russia, and later foreign correspondent of the Guardian. His drawings are realistic, and recreate the scenes and
locales of the Walker children’s holiday adventures in the Swallows and Amazons
series. He draws mainly for his locales on the beautiful natural landscape of
the Lake District and the marshes and river of the Norfolk Broads. Both during
his stint as war correspondent in Europe, when he successfully built and sailed
a cruising yacht, Racundra, in the
Baltic Sea, and during his later life as an author and journalist in England, when
he owned a succession of sailing yachts, Ransome was keenly absorbed in the out-of-doors
life on the water, an avid sailor and sporting enthusiast like no other. This
love for boats and sailing is reflected in the holiday adventures of the
children in the Swallows and Amazons series. Whether it is John, Susan, Titty
and Roger in Swallows and Amazons,
Dick and Dorothea in Winter Holiday
or Joe, Bill and Pete in The Big Six,
all the children are caught up in the excitements, delights and also
responsibilities of sailing.
The books are all, of
course, illustrated by Ransome himself, and the insertions of key full-page
illustrations were obviously designedly done. Many of these concern the actions
of the children in the books, their sailing down or up the river, fishing or
other nautical activities. In fact, he lovingly draws the sailing boats (see
Figures 1and 2: The Big Six:132, 145)and
the rivers, with deft shading showing the undulating waves, the skies with
birds circling in the far distance, or even the nighttime skies with stars
twinkling and the boat sailing in the moonlight (Figure 3, Winter Holiday: 295). The illustrations clearly recreate a long
English summer spent in delightful pursuits. There are descriptions of fishing
on the river, sailing out to islands on the lake with all the expectancy of a
travel expedition, picnicking in the woods and cooking on camp fires.
But what is interesting is in these
full-page illustrations, Ransome, when delineating the English landscape, the
leafy foliage of trees on the riverbank, or bushes or reeds by the river, takes
recourse to an impressionistic vagueness. The precision we are accustomed to
find in such matters, for instance, in the work of Arthur Robinson in Frances
Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, is entirely absent here.
Also interestingly, the human figures are glimpsed mostly in profile or in
silhouettes. Ransome resorts to vagueness when it comes to delineating facial
features—there are only suggestive outlines, a chin, a nose or rounded
cheeks—no filling in with precisely drawn or shaded characteristics. This
vagueness is probably deliberate, and not a sign of any deficiency in artistic
skill, and Ransome perhaps wishes his young readers to imagine what his child
protagonists are like for themselves, to guide and not to dominate their
imagination with overmastering images.
This contention would also
tend to be supported by the fact that when Ransome is sketching objects or
river birds or sailing craft in the small illustrations that close chapters in
the books he is quite specific about details. In fact, there are many
illustrations which tend to reinforce the impression of a real world, maps and
charts, objects like lanterns, bunk beds, compasses and cooking on camp fires
(see Figures 4 and 5 Swallows and Amazons
333, Winter Holiday 279). He seems to be providing notes on the real world of
exploration, action and adventure where his youthful protagonists all seem to
be ambitious to venture forth. These illustrations are admittedly minor ones;
Ransome himself does not include them in the list of illustrations with which
he begins the narrative of each of these novels. Possibly he takes them as only
providing supplementary background or some light relief. But they are very much
part of our integral experience of reading these books. They not only remind us
of the background of the stories but thrill us with their simplicity and
beauty.
The sketches of various
water fowls, ducks, moorhens, bearded tits, are all beautifully done with
loving attention to detail. Also the river fish, like pike, carp and sturgeon,
are vividly drawn. (Figures 6, 7 & 8 Swallows:
24, The Big Six 279). The natural
world of the riverbank comes alive to us through these sketches. It is a
vividly and vigorously drawn natural world, strong in its tones of earthy
realism, alive with all the tints of a languorous summer’s day, but at the
same, replete with people busy with their working lives. It may be a holiday
world for the children, but their world borders on the workaday world. Also,
this world is as quintessentially English as the natural world of The Wind in the Willows. But it is not a
world where the characters lead a life of leisured ease. Of course, Ransome was
writing stories of action and adventure, not attempting a quasi-mythological
fable and telling commentary on his times like Grahame. But, due to his
realistic overtones, no less reinforced by his illustrations, Ransome’s
fictional world remains firmly anchored in its present reality.
The children’s
activities of sailing on the river and lakes, camping, fishing and
bird-watching epitomize the holiday activities, pluckiness and hardihood of
British children of that age and generation. Ransome was also probably trying
to convey lessons in resourcefulness and practical action in the face of
natural and man-made disasters. These tales of action and adventure were to
prove to have an enduring legacy in English children’s fiction, and we can find
traces of this world even in the adventure stories of Enid Blyton.
The greatest tribute
that can be paid to Ransome as illustrator is that he had the courage and
inventiveness to illustrate his own stories. He drew well, though lacking the
finesse and professional finish of the illustrators commissioned to illustrate
children’s books, but left much to the imaginations of his young readers. His
illustrations still delight us and will continue to encourage and inspire more
generations to read Ransome’s books.
Works Cited:
Ransome, Arthur. Swallows and Amazons. 1930. London: Random House, 2001.
---.Winter Holiday. 1933. London: Random
House, 2012.
---. The Big Six. 1940. Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1984.
Archive of
Children’s Book Illustrations of the Golden Age. https://www.pookpress.co.uk/illustrators-archive/
Bio: Dr Indrajit Bose is Assistant Professor and Section-in-Charge of English, Guru Nanak Institute of Technology, Kolkata. He completed his graduation from St Xavier’s College, Kolkata and M.A and Ph D from Jadavpur University. His area of specialization is in Conrad studies. He has also completed the eTBE certificate from the University of South Carolina, U.S.A and has been trained in ELT by the British Council. He has taught for more than 18 years, presented papers at national and international conferences and published in journals. He has also completed a UGC MRP on “Speaking Proficiency Development of EFL and ESL Learners in India” (2014-16). He also holds a diploma in French.
Bio: Dr Indrajit Bose is Assistant Professor and Section-in-Charge of English, Guru Nanak Institute of Technology, Kolkata. He completed his graduation from St Xavier’s College, Kolkata and M.A and Ph D from Jadavpur University. His area of specialization is in Conrad studies. He has also completed the eTBE certificate from the University of South Carolina, U.S.A and has been trained in ELT by the British Council. He has taught for more than 18 years, presented papers at national and international conferences and published in journals. He has also completed a UGC MRP on “Speaking Proficiency Development of EFL and ESL Learners in India” (2014-16). He also holds a diploma in French.
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