Andrew Lang and Arthur Ransome

In his Autobiography, p.36, Arthur Ransome states that as a child he knew Andrew Lang's Fairy Books, which he was given on birthdays and at Christmas. It is natural that Ransome should have been influenced by Lang when he turned his hand to retelling folktales for children: reading the stories in Old Peter's Russian Tales (1916) alongside those in Lang's Fairy Books I have been struck by the similarities in their directness of language and in their combination of matter-of-factness and imagination. Lang drew on folktales from a large number of countries (Germany, India, Iceland, Turkey, Greece, France, Denmark, etc.) and a few - but only a few - from Russia. Ransome's Old Peter can, therefore, perhaps be thought of as an extension of Lang's work.

The Blue Fairy Book1889
The Brown Fairy Book 1904
The Olive Fairy Book1907
The Orange Fairy Book1906
The Red Fairy Book1889
The Violet Fairy Book1901
The Yellow Fairy Book1894