Posted by Anne LeVeque on January 29, 1999 at 17:23:45:
In Reply to: Which Children's authors did Ransome influence? posted by Phil Kellingley on January 28, 1999 at 20:50:54:
In a very broad sense, there are quite a few authors who owe something to Ransome, whether explicitly or not.
Having come to Ransome's children's stories fairly recently, I of course compared them in my mind to the stories I loved as a child. First and foremost among these is C.S.Lewis' Narnia stories. As soon as my husband started reading S&A aloud, I picked up on the '4 children - 2 girls, 2 boys on an adventure' structure. The adding of friends and relations to the adventure is similar also. I don't have any concrete evidence that Lewis was consciously influenced, but they were more or less contemporaries. Lewis' writing for children began slightly later than Ransome, so there could have been some influence.
Any thoughts on this comparison? There are quite obvious differences: Lewis definitely had an intentional Christian message throughout his stories, although his genius lies in his lack (in the Narnia stories anyway) of dogmatism.
Anne LeVeque