We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea - Hardcover

"This book is Ransome at the top of his form." (OBSERVER)

"The book is a record of an uncovenanted voyage, which ended in Holland, of the rain and wind, the darkness and the wild water, the escapes from buoys and from ships crossing in the night, the courage and resource of the children." (EVENING STANDARD)

"Perhaps the best of all ... Just what does happen is told with all the wealth of practical detail and satisfying sense of reality which make Mr Ransome so unfailingly successful." (PUNCH)

"The most exciting of the whole Swallows and Amazons series." (NEW STATESMAN)

"The seventh of the Arthur Ransome books, and I really think it is the best." (SUNDAY TIMES)

'Like to spend a night in the Goblin?’

The Swallows are staying on the Suffolk coast while they wait for their father to return home from China. But although the harbour is bursting with bobbing yachts, barges and steamers, this year there's no chance of any sailing for the landlocked Swallows. That is until they rescue young Jim Brading and his boat the Goblin from a sticky situation and to their delight are recruited as crew members. Mother agrees they can go, on one condition – they absolutely must not sail out past Beach End Buoy and into the open sea...