Secret Water, eighty this year by Julia Jones
Arthur Ransome’s eighth novel, Secret Water, is eighty this year. It’s his only Essex novel and this anniversary has prompted a 'hub' weekend of events in Harwich during the county's book festival in March. It also prompts the question what does it mean for a book to be eighty? An eightieth birthday, celebrated in 2019, means that the book was published in 1939 -- and in Secret Water ’s case it's likely that most of it was written during that peculiarly unsettling year. Publication date for Secret Water was 28th November 1939, when Britain had already been at war for almost three months. In those days the period between a book’s delivery and its publication could be very short. In a letter to his mother, dated Sept 18 th 1939, Ransome reports: ‘The new book, as I told you, has gone to the printers and I am now full blast with pictures and maps trying to get them done before the proofs arrive. I’ve done some big maps and a little one. Four full pag...