Arthur Ransome is best known for his ‘Swallows and Amazons’ series of children’s books. This is the only example of his fiction in the public domain. These stories are all from Russian folklore, some comparatively well-known, others less so. Ransome spent some years in Russia as a newspaper correspondent fir the ‘Daily News’ and the ‘Manchester Guardian’ and was peripherally involved in the revolution. In the late twenties he married Evgenia Shvelpina, Trotsky’s secretary, retired from newspapers and started writing his children’s books.

Latest episodes of the podcast Old Peter's Russian Tales by Arthur Ransome

• 00 Introduction (Note & ‘The Hut in
• 01 – The Tale of the Silver Saucer and the Transparent Apple
• 02 – Sadko
• 03 – Frost
• 04 – The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship
• 05 – Baba Yaga
• 06 – The Cat Who Became Head-Forester
• 07 – Spring in the Forest
• 08 – The Little Daughter of the Snow
• 09 – Prince Ivan, the witch baby, and the Little Sister of the Sun
• 10 – The Stolen Turnips, The Magic Tablecloth, The Sneezing Goat and The Wooden Whistle
• 11 – Little Master Misery
• 12 – A Chapter of Fish
• 13 – The Golden Fish
• 14 – Who Lived in the Skull
• 15 – Alenoushka And Her Brother
• 16 – The Fire-Bird, The Horse of Power, and The Princess Vasilissa
• 17 – The Hunter and His Wife
• 18 – The Three Men Of Power – Evening, Midnight, And Sunrise
• 19 – Salt
• 20 – The Christening in the Village