Arthur Ransome.

I came upon a rather intresting looking read today,in a local charity shop...Arthur Ransome on fishing by Jeremy Swift.
It wasn`t until i googled his name etc.... that i found out he wrote the famous "Swallows and amazons" series.
Looking at the notes on the rear sleave of the book,he seems to have been quite the fishing adventurer,having fished all over the world and his writing held in high esteem.
I believe he also wrote a collumn for the guardian newspaper ???
Any one here read any fishing related material by him ???

The book set me back 75p by the way...bargain !!!

Yes. I've got Ransome on Fishing, which is a collection of most of his fishing writing for the Manchester Guardian. I've just bought The Last Englishman by Roland Chambers which is a biography of Ransome. His life was certainly interesting as he fell in love with Trotsky's secretary and was thought to be a double agent.

I'll report back on the book when I've read it.

There's also Rod and Line which is a collection of his articles.

Neneman Nick said:

Any one here read any fishing related material by him ???

The book set me back 75p by the way...bargain !!!

Click to expand...

Have read Rod and line- A truly remarkable book by a remarkable angler- when I have read in past threads of peoples list of great anglers I dont think I have ever read his name but he is up there on mine, his accounts of his fishing adventures make others pale into the mist. Read his account of playing a Barbel on the Thames, fishing while the russian revolution was going on all around him and his description of fishing thro a total eclipse- totally enthralling.
Neneman-- 75p- shriek!!! mine was "nowt" (its a Yorkshire thing.)
By the way another great angling read particularly for northern anglers is "Within the Stream" byJohn Hillaby, brilliant! His description of the old "All England"fishing match as never been bettered. (its not a book on match angling by the way but that chapter is just superb )

Do read "Rod and Line", a volume of Ransome's weekly articles for the seems unlikely now, Manchester Guardian in the 1920s, for it is certainly one of the best books about Angling (as opposed to mere Hookin', or farting prettily about looking back on a never-happened Golden Age) ever written. Short, sharp but elegant chapters, for they were word-limited newspaper articles, but did they pack lasting weight and punch! Try his one on tackleshops (if only more tackle barons and dealers and gizz-an-ad journos had read it and really understood...).

Rod and Line is well worth reading, as other contributors have already mentioned.

He went to Russia as a journalist just after the revolution, wrote articles for the Manchester Guardian, met many of the revolutionaries, abandoned his wife and daughter, married Trotsky's secretary, and did a bit of spying for the British government. How did he find time to go fishing ?

Worthy of a special shelf on the bookcase, alongside other notable angling authors, such as-William Senior, (Red Spinner), Sheringham, B.B., J.W. Martin,(Trent Otter)and Philip Geen.

In a word, ''Gems''.