We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea
  • Published: 1 October 1989
  • ISBN: 9780224021234
  • Imprint: Jonathan Cape
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $45.00

We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea

Formats & editions
EBook
5 Jun 2014
EBook
30 Jun 2011
Paperback
1 Aug 2014
Paperback
7 Dec 2001
Hardback
1 Oct 1989
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The Swallows are out on the water once again, this time in a bigger boat and on a bigger adventure than ever before

'Like to spend a night in the Goblin?’

The Swallows are staying on the Suffolk coast while they wait for their father to return home from China. But although the harbour is bursting with bobbing yachts, barges and steamers, this year there's no chance of any sailing for the landlocked Swallows. That is until they rescue young Jim Brading and his boat the Goblin from a sticky situation and to their delight are recruited as crew members. Mother agrees they can go, on one condition – they absolutely must not sail out past Beach End Buoy and into the open sea…
  • Published: 1 October 1989
  • ISBN: 9780224021234
  • Imprint: Jonathan Cape
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $45.00
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About the author

Arthur Ransome

Arthur Ransome was born in Leeds in 1884 and went to school at Rugby. He was in Russia in 1917, and witnessed the Revolution, which he reported for the Manchester Guardian.

After escaping to Scandinavia, he settled in the Lake District with his Russian wife where, in 1929, he wrote Swallows and Amazons. And so began a writing career which has produced some of the real children's treasures of all time. In 1936 he won the first ever Carnegie Medal for his book, Pigeon Post.

Ransome died in 1967. He and his wife Evgenia lie buried in the churchyard of St Paul's Church, Rusland, in the southern Lake District.

Also by Arthur Ransome

Swallows and Amazons
Great Northern?
Swallowdale
Secret Water
Missee Lee
The Picts and the Martyrs
The Big Six
See all

Praise for We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea

This book is Ransome at the top of his form.

OBSERVER

The book is a record of an uncovenanted voyage, which ended in Holland, of the rain and wind, the darkness and the wild water, the escapes from buoys and from ships crossing in the night, the courage and resource of the children.

EVENING STANDARD

Perhaps the best of all ... Just what does happen is told with all the wealth of practical detail and satisfying sense of reality which make Mr Ransome so unfailingly successful.

PUNCH

The most exciting of the whole Swallows and Amazons series.

NEW STATESMAN

The seventh of the Arthur Ransome books, and I really think it is the best.

SUNDAY TIMES