The Picts and the Martyrs

The Picts and the Martyrs

or Not Welcome At All

Summary

The poor old Amazons become Martyrs and the Ds Picts living in the woods, in Arthur Ransome's 11th adventure. The Ds can't wait to go and stay with Nancy and Peggy in the Lake District during the summer holidays. But when the Amazons' dreadful Great Aunt invites herself to stay too, the summer is threatened with dullness. Staying indoors and reading poetry is not what the Amazons had in mind. To save the Ds from the same fate they organise for them to stay in the Dogs' Home, a tumble-down hut in the woods. As long as no one discovers they're there they can sail all summer long.

Reviews

  • Stands out in triumph. It is firm, intelligent, in tune with twentieth-century mentality and well-written
    Times Literary Supplement

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.
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