Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons takes its name from the Swallow and the Amazon, two fourteen-foot dinghies that the childre
n of the Walker and Blackett families sail in Coniston Lake in the English Lake District, where they play pirates and picnic at their campsite.
Food and drinks are brought from home and are cooked very properly by one of the girls; in this instance, Susan: “She put the frying-pan on the ground and gave everyone a spoon. The Captain, mate, and the crew of the Swallow squatted round the frying-pan, and began eating as soon as the scrambled eggs, which were very hot, would let them.” Besides eggs and butter, they have brown bread, seed cake, apples, rice pudding, tea, milk, and when they can get it, ginger beer.
Amazons wear red hatsClaude Whatham. Swallows and Amazons (1974)
Featured Image: Clifford Webb’s version of the Amazon’s camp (1935).
See Arthur Ransom. Swallows and Amazons. London: Jonathan Cape, 1930; Clifford Webb. Swallows and Amazons. London: Jonathan Cape, 1935; Claude Whatham. Swallows and Amazons (1974). Screenplay by David Wood is based on Ransome’s novel; Philippa Lowthorpe. Swallows and Amazons (2016). Screenplay Andrea Gibb is loosely based on Ransome’s novel.
*There are twelve books in the Amazon and Swallows series (1939-1947).