Missee Lee by Arthur Ransome, First Edition with Dust Jacket

Arthur [Mitchell] Ransome (1884 to 1967)—English author and journalist, born in Leeds and best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books (Swallows and Amazons, Swallowdale, Peter Duck, Winter Holiday, Coot Club, Pigeon Post, We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea, Secret Water, The Big Six, Missee Lee, The Picts And The Martyrs: or Not Welcome At All and Great Northern?). He was also the author of forty or so other titles including other children's books, fishing books, sailing books and books on politics

Jonathan Cape Limited—(Founded in 1919) British publisher founded in 1919 by Herbert Jonathan Cape (1879-1960), the son of a builder who started as an apprentice in the book trade. The company was initially named Jonathan Page and Company (Page was his mother's maiden name) and this changed to Jonathan Cape in 1921. Its most books and authors are probably: T. E. Lawrence, Arthur Ransome, the later Roald Dahl books, Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano, Fitzroy Maclean's Eastern Approaches, the James Bond series by Ian Fleming and more recently Anita Brookner, Margaret Atwood, Julian Barnes, Salman Rushdie. It is currently an imprint of Random House.

Swallows and Amazons—A series of 12 (Swallows and Amazons, Swallowdale, Peter Duck, Winter Holiday, Coot Club, Pigeon Post, We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea, Secret Water, The Big Six, Missee Lee, The Picts And The Martyrs: or Not Welcome At All and Great Northern?) children's books by English author Arthur Ransome, named after the title of the first book in the series. They involve the outdoor adventures of children, most notably John, Susan, Titty, and Roger Walker, Nancy and Peggy Blackett and Dick and Dorothea Callum. They portray an idyllic, yet also realistic, depiction of childhood adventure set in the 1930s. The series contains 12 books. The first book was originally published in 1930 and the last book was originally published in 1947. Titles in the series are: 1—'Swallows and Amazons', 2—'Swallowdale', 3—'Peter Duck', 4—'Winter Holiday', 5—'Coot Club', 6—'Pigeon Post', 7—'We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea', 8—'Secret Water', 9—'The Big Six', 10—'Missee Lee', 11—'The Picts and the Martyrs: Or Not Welcome at All', 12—'Great Northern?' and 13—'Coots in the North (Unfinished)'

The Swallows and Amazons are shipwrecked and captured by Chinese pirates, who want to either keep them or kill them! Luckily Roger remembers some of his Latin ….

There are twenty seven chapters: 1—'The Hundredth Port', 2—'Loss of the Wildcat', 3—'What Happened to Swallow', 4—'What Happened to Amazon', 5—''Hic Liber Est Meus'', 6—'It's Them!', 7—'The Shadow of a Monkey', 8—'Ten Gong Taicoon', 9—'Pirate Supper', 10—'On the Road Again', 11—'Dragon Town', 12—'Twenty-Two Gong Taicoon', 13—'Miss Lee Explains', 14—'Cambridge Breakfast and an S.O.S', 15—'Miss Lee Buys Captain Flint', 16—'Captain Fling Joins the Dunces', 17—'Free But Prisoners', 18—'Model Students', 19—'Holiday Voyage', 20—'Captain Fling Gets Back His Sextant', 21—'Old Seaman Wu Uses It', 22—'Money Returned', 23—'Miss Lee Agrees with Her Counsellor', 24—'The Dragon Feast', 25—'Little Dragon Alone', 26—'Only One Way Out' and 27—'The Path of Duty'.

There are twenty six illustrations: 1—'Landing on the Island (Frontispiece)', 2—'The Navigators', 3—'The Burning of the Wildcat', 4—'How the Sea-Anchor Works', 5—'First Sight of China', 6—''No!'', 7—'Lodging for the Night', 8—'The Inscription', 9—'The Rhyme in the Dictionary', 10—'Cormorant Fisher', 11—'Two Shadows Jerked Forward', 12—'Chang and His Prisoner', 13—'In the Courtyard', 14—'Waiting to Hear Their Fate', 15—'Map', 16—'Captain Flint's S.O.S', 17—'The Ultimatum', 18—'Bargaining for Captain Flint', 19—'Anybody Could See What He Mean't', 20—'Captain Flint Recites His Piece', 21—'Bo'Sun Wu Does Not Shake Hands', 22—'At Work on the Dragon', 23—'The Gorge', 24—'The Little Dragon Leaves Yamen', 25—'Startling the Dragon's Tail' and 26—'The Shining Moon'.