Ransome's first story, ‘The Desert Island’, 1892.

[Written at the age of eight in a tiny notebook now with the Ransome papers at Abbot Hall Museum and Art Gallery, Kendal, and first published in Mixed Moss, The Journal of The Arthur Ransome Society, vol. 1, no. 1, 1990.]

The Desert Island.

By A. M. Ransome.

There was once a boy called Jack. His father had gone to Liverpool and had never been heard of since, everybody thought that he had been seized by a press-gang, and taken away to the South Seas. So Jack made up his mind to go and find him. When he was fourteen he went to Portsmouth and went on board a ship called the White Bird. This ship was bound for the Friendly Isles. They had very good weather till they got round Australia. Then a terrible storm began to blow and the ship lost its rudder. The next day the main mast fell and crushed two of the men. Four hours after this disaster the ship sprang a leak and they had to take to the boats. Jack and one of his friends called Tom escaped in a very small boat by themselves. The land was about two miles away. They rowed to it but all the other boats sank at least they thought so. They rowed back to the ship the next day and took a lot of planks, guns, pistols and swords back with them.