Coots in the North illustrations

I was just wondering about whether anyone knows if Arthur Ransome did any drawings for coots in the north or if he did any for the other books but weren't used?

Alastair

Alastair - 

I guess you've got the Hugh Brogan book inlcuding the remaining bits of this story, There are four rough sketches included - of Bonnka on the lorry in Horning, one of the lorry with Bonnka leaving the Death and Glories, one of Ratty and the owner of the Bonnka, and finally the rescue on the lake.

However, I recently bought a book in the Amazon series by Roger Wardale, called Ransome the Artist. (I think generally AR was a very good artist.) Roger has collected some of the preliminary sketches and unused drawings for the books, looking at each book in succession.  There  are quite a lot. Perhaps you cul ask around south west Regional members to see if anyone could lene you a copy. Tantalisingly, he mentions seven pages of sketches for Coots in the north, but only uses one in the book, a very rough sketch of Bonnka being raised on pulleys prior to loading. So with the four in Brogan's book, there are still two missing! Maybe they're not very good.

There is always one thing that puzzles me about Coots in the North. It is presented as never being published until the 1988 Brogan book. However, when I read this I was absolutely sure I had read it when I was young, probably nine or ten or so, in the early 1960's, in Edinburgh. Does anyone else have a similar memory?

Rob

Further to my last point about "Coots in the North" being printed in the early 1960's, I was recently reading Roger Wardale's book, "Arthur Ransome and the world of the Swallows and Amazons", and on page 142 he mentions that in 1962 Jonathan Cape had had an enquiry about whether "More about the Big Six" had been published yet.

Roger links this to the draft that Hugh Brogan named "Coots in the North", thinking that word of it must have got out, though Hugh Brogan thought the draft was written in 1948 and Roger Wardale seems to imply AR stopped work on it to write Great Northern? (i.e. in 1944) - either seem a long time for word to take to get out, without some other trigger.

I just wonder if my memory is possibly right, and the enquiry was prompted by the factual or heralded publication of Coots in the North, in the guise of More about the Big Six.

Rob