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 Book 1889 The Brown Fairy Book 1904 The Olive Fairy Book 1907 The Orange Fairy Book 1906 The Red Fairy Book 1889 The Violet Fairy Book 1901 The Yellow Fairy Book 1894