Peter Duck

The Swallows and Amazons, as well as Captain Flint and the ancient able seaman Peter Duck, set sail on the Wild Cat bound for the Channel.

But they are shadowed by the Viper, manned by none other than Black Jake – a beastly pirate with a dark plan. Can the children race ahead and uncover the buried treasure before the pirate?

Can they survive storms, earthquakes, crabs and even a waterspout and make it home?

Backstory: Find out if you would be a good sailor aboard the Wild Cat and learn all about the real location that inspired the author.

More from Arthur Ransome

The Picts and the Martyrs
Great Northern?
Missee Lee
The Big Six
Secret Water
We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea
Coot Club
Pigeon Post
Winter Holiday
Swallowdale
Swallows and Amazons

Arthur Ransome was born in 1884. 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 of England with his Russian wife where, in 1929, he wrote Swallows and Amazons. Thus began a writing career that has produced some of the best children’s literature of all time.