Peter Duck (1932)
Synopsis and Further Information on Peter Duck
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Synopsis The Peter Duck of the title is an ancient, hugely experienced, sailor who has spent his life sailing the oceans on tea clippers such as the Thermopylae. Retiring to his wherry on the Norfolk Broads, Peter Duck passes his time in Lowestoft Harbour watching ships preparing to head out to sea. Also in Lowestoft, the Swallows and Amazons are gathering with Captain Flint onboard the Wild Cat, an ex-Baltic trading schooner that Captain Flint has bought and converted for a cruise around the British coast. When Captain Flint finds himself short of experienced help, Peter Duck offers his services and joins the Wild Cat's crew. Plans are soon being made for a leisurely cruise down channel. Those plans gradually change because of the attentions of Black Jake, who shadows the Wild Cat in his own schooner, the Viper. Some sixty years before, Peter Duck witnessed pirates burying their treasure on a deserted Caribbean Island. Black Jake knows this and is determined to force Peter Duck to lead him to the treasure. Increasingly appalled by Black Jake's behaviour, Captain Flint and the Swallows and Amazons decide to find the treasure themselves. Thus is set the scene for a chase across the Atlantic, with the crew of the Wild Cat having to survive storms, earthquakes, crabs and even a waterspout as they try to find the treasure, outwit the Viper and return in triumph to Lowestoft. |
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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 Peter Duck is fiction set within fiction, a story purportedly made up not by Ransome, but directly by the Swallows and Amazons themselves. Ransome explains this in the title page, where he writes that Peter Duck is "based on information supplied by the Swallows and Amazons and illustrated mainly by themselves". Unlike Swallows and Amazons and Swallowdale, which are set in "real time" and a realistic - albeit rearranged - Lake District, Peter Duck takes place in a timeless world that allows the Swallows and Amazons to cross and recross the Altantic without any serious reference to school terms or the practical length of holidays. Swallowdale was published before Peter Duck, but references in the former make it clear that the story of Peter Duck was created by the Swallows and Amazons between the "real time" events of Swallows and Amazons and those of Swallowdale. According to Swallowdale, they had created the story for entertainment whilst wintering with Captain Flint aboard a wherry on the Norfolk Broads. Ransome's uncompleted first draft for Peter Duck makes this genesis much clearer. It can be read in full in Christina Hardyment's Arthur Ransome and Captain Flint's Trunk, which is available from the Society Stall. Peter Duck was the first of the Swallows and Amazons books that Ransome illustrated for himself. By his own admission he struggled with perspective and anatomy, often resorting to copying from posed photographs, which he called "Hollywoods". His technique undoubtedly improved over the years, until his style of illustration became an integral and highly valued aspect of his books. Nonetheless, it was undoubtedly useful to be able to blame his first attempts in Peter Duck on the drawing skills of his child characters. |
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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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