Swallows and Amazons Series - Overview

Overview

The series begins with Swallows and Amazons, published in 1930. It tells the story of the Walker children, who sail a dinghy named Swallow, and the Blackett children, who sail a dinghy named Amazon. The Walkers are staying at a farm near a lake during the school holidays; the Blacketts live in a house on the opposite shore. The Walkers consider themselves explorers while the Blacketts declare themselves to be pirates. The children meet on an island on the lake, and have a series of adventures that weave imaginative tales of pirates and exploration into everyday life in inter-War, rural England. In subsequent adventures in the series, the children change their usual roles and become explorers or miners. In the novel Winter Holiday, the children meet with Dick and Dorothea Callum, siblings visiting the area. Dick and Dorothea are often referred to as "The Ds" and appear in subsequent novels. Dick considers himself a scientist, while Dorothea sees herself as a writer.

Two of the books feature only the Callums: Coot Club and The Big Six. They are set in an accurate representation of the Norfolk Broads, particularly the small village of Horning and its surrounding rivers and broads. Two books are set in Suffolk and Essex around the river Orwell, though one involves a trip across the North Sea to Holland. Two other books, Peter Duck and Missee Lee, and possibly also Great Northern?, are metafictional, representing fictitious tales of the protagonists' voyages to exotic lands, purportedly as imagined by the protagonists themselves.