Ferdinand Mount writes:

The bulk of his pages concentrate on Ransome’s adventures in Russia and the Baltic, with his career as a children’s writer tacked on, rather perfunctorily, at the end. He declares candidly that when, at the age of 45, Ransome began writing the books for which he is now remembered, 'the most interesting episode of his life, from a biographer’s point of view, was already over.'

(LRB 24 September 2009)

Faber | hardback 390 pp. |ISBN: 9780571222612