Missee Lee (1941)
Synopsis and Further Information on Missee Lee
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Synopsis The start of Missee Lee finds the Swallows, Amazons and Captain Flint aboard the Wild Cat, half way through a circumnavigation of the world. Whilst becalmed off the coast of China, the Wild Cat catches fire and sinks, leaving them adrift in their lifeboats, the Swallow and Amazon of the earlier Lake District novels. Separated in a storm, both parties eventually make it ashore. There they are captured and reunited by Taicoon Chang, one of the leaders of the Three Islands, a maritime community that uses its war junks to protect traders from coastal pirates. Things look bleak because the Islands have a policy of never taking British prisoners, for fear of the Royal Navy. The prisoners are summoned before Missee Lee, the Twenty-Two gong Taicoon of Dragon Island and the head of the Three Islands. There a surprise awaits: Missee Lee was educated at Newnham College, Cambridge. Her duty is to her people and her ancestors, but her passion is Latin. Missee Lee buys the prisoners from a reluctant Chang, in order to keep them as unwilling students. Although content herself, her decision produces tensions in the Three Islands, as she begins to neglect her duties through her attention to their lessons. Eventually the other Taicoons force her to agree to execute her prisoners. Missee Lee, however, has a plan of her own - to help her students escape in her personal junk, using the Three Islands Dragon Festival for cover. The prisoners manage to board the junk, but then the alarm is raised and they realise that their only escape lies through the terrifying rocks and whirlpool of the Roaring Gorge to the open sea beyond. |
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For a more detailed synopsis of the Swallows and Amazons series, see Approaching Arthur Ransome by Peter Hunt. ISBN 0-224-03288-7. Jonathan Cape, 1991. | ||
| Further Information Missee Lee is the second of the "fiction within fiction" novels of the Swallows and Amazons series. As such it is effectively the direct sequel to Peter Duck. As the Swallows and Amazons' own fantasy story, Missee Lee lies outside "real time", thereby permitting a plot in which they are able to sail around the world. It is clear, however, that the story is set in the 1930s, prior to the Second World War, at a time when the Royal Navy still held its pre-eminent role and its gunboats would have been feared by the Three Islanders more than anyone elses. Ransome knew the China of this period personally, having visited as a journalist in 1927, and this allows him to paint a detailed portrait of Three Islands life. Missee Lee herself is a startlingly original character. Ransome states that he was inspired by Madame Sun Yat Sen, whomhe had met in 1927. He also, he said, enjoyed using some of the other warlords he met as background for her junior Taicoons, Chang and Wu. |
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For a more detailed study of the background to the Swallows and Amazons Series, see Amazon Publication's The Best of Childhood, 2004. The Best of Childhood is available to current TARS Members from the Society Stall. | ||
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