RANSOME, Arthur. The Big Six. London: Jonathan Cape [1940]. 12mo, 400pp. Green cloth stamped in gilt on spine and blind-stamped on front. Two-color map endpapers; b&w illustrations throughout. Spine ends and corners slightly rubbed, light foxing on fore-edge of sheets – but not extending internally, endpapers minutely foxed, in original color pictorial dust jacket (light edgewear, some soiling, spine lightly sunned).

First edition. The ninth book in Arthur Ransome’s beloved Swallows and Amazons series. Ransome returns once more to his beloved Norfolk Broads where trouble is again brewing between the three boatbuilders’ sons (who more or less live full-time aboard the Death and Glory) and the three Coots, Tom, Dorothea and Dick. The problem arises when the boats are constantly being set adrift, and all the evidence points squarely to the boatbuilders’ sons. In a clever bit of detective work, and with some help from a sophisticated photographic trap, the two trios come together as the Big Six and manage to exonerate themselves and catch the villains.