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Oxus #1
The Far Distant Oxus
A large parcel came by post to Arthur Ransome. He opened it to find the manuscript of this book written by two schoolgirls, during the winter and spring terms, to the detriment of their school work. He began reading it with deep mistrust but soon found himself unable to stop.
A party of children stay in a farmhouse on Exmoor, meet other like-minded children, have all sorts of adventures, mostly on horseback but also on a raft on the river. They have the sort of holiday that everybody would like to have if only they could!
A party of children stay in a farmhouse on Exmoor, meet other like-minded children, have all sorts of adventures, mostly on horseback but also on a raft on the river. They have the sort of holiday that everybody would like to have if only they could!
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1937
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
June 11, 2014
As a kid, this was one of my very favorite books. I read and re-read it. I don't think I was aware how old it was at the time. It was published in 1937. It was written by two girls, ages 14 and 15, who submitted their manuscript to their favorite author, Arthur Ransome.
I've just finished reading his 'Swallows and Amazons,' which made me think of this book. Having now read both, it's very very clear how blatantly influenced by that book Hull and Whitlock were. This story is an homage to Ransome: a version of his story with their own ideal vacation, drawing on their own summer experiences.
Here, the young people are spending their holiday on the moors - with ponies for them to ride and explore. Inspired by the poetry they're read, they transpose an exotic imaginary landscape onto the English countryside, imbuing everything they see with magic.
Unlike in Ransome's book, there's a hint of innocent romance here (involving a tall, dark stranger, of course) - which, yes, I appreciated as a girl. But mostly it's memorable for its perfect description of how the love of reading can add richness to everything one experiences on a daily basis. And of course, there're the ponies.
There are two sequels to this book, which I've never had the opportunity to read. I'll give interlibrary loan a shot...
I've just finished reading his 'Swallows and Amazons,' which made me think of this book. Having now read both, it's very very clear how blatantly influenced by that book Hull and Whitlock were. This story is an homage to Ransome: a version of his story with their own ideal vacation, drawing on their own summer experiences.
Here, the young people are spending their holiday on the moors - with ponies for them to ride and explore. Inspired by the poetry they're read, they transpose an exotic imaginary landscape onto the English countryside, imbuing everything they see with magic.
Unlike in Ransome's book, there's a hint of innocent romance here (involving a tall, dark stranger, of course) - which, yes, I appreciated as a girl. But mostly it's memorable for its perfect description of how the love of reading can add richness to everything one experiences on a daily basis. And of course, there're the ponies.
There are two sequels to this book, which I've never had the opportunity to read. I'll give interlibrary loan a shot...
December 30, 2025
A group of children heads off on their own for a series of adventures.
It sounds a lot like some of the most popular English children's books of the first half of the 1900's, doesn't it?
One of the novelties of this book is that the authors themselves were teens when they wrote the book.
The children travel on horseback around the moors of England (and, later, aboard a raft down the river to the sea) without adult supervision. It's that lack of adult supervision that might seem most shocking to contemporary readers.
A 1001 Children's Books You Must Read.
It sounds a lot like some of the most popular English children's books of the first half of the 1900's, doesn't it?
One of the novelties of this book is that the authors themselves were teens when they wrote the book.
The children travel on horseback around the moors of England (and, later, aboard a raft down the river to the sea) without adult supervision. It's that lack of adult supervision that might seem most shocking to contemporary readers.
A 1001 Children's Books You Must Read.
Read
May 16, 2019Did not finish, may return to.
December 31, 2007
This book, more than any other I have read, has been the most influential. I read it when I was seven, and its tale of adventure captivated my imagination. It revolves around a group of children in the country, and the most memorable of their adventures - which occupies a good deal of the story - is their construction of a raft and subsequent journey down the Oxus.
I read the book repeatedly. More importantly, after I read it for the first time, I sat down at my father's computer and began writing my own story (which I still have, and it blatantly plagiarises The Far Distant Oxus's general plot). I have been writing ever since I read this book. This writing propelled me to considerable academic achievement, it has influenced my career choices, and it is a central part of my life. Even my online (and nowadays offline) nickname, Axver, is connected to the book! The story I wrote featured a watercourse name that was a bastardisation of the Oxus, the Axix River. Axver, then the last name for a character, was in turn derived from Axix.
So why only 3 stars? Well, in terms of actual quality, this is not exactly a classic, despite being very readable and well suited to young children. 5 stars is my masterpiece rating, 4 stars for books that are very good but fall short of being a masterpiece, and 3 stars is for books like this - enjoyable, memorable, and worthwhile, without being exceptional examples of their type. The fact that The Far Distant Oxus was so influential on me was perhaps more due to ideal circumstances and luck. I'll certainly pass it on to any children I may have in the future, though.
I read the book repeatedly. More importantly, after I read it for the first time, I sat down at my father's computer and began writing my own story (which I still have, and it blatantly plagiarises The Far Distant Oxus's general plot). I have been writing ever since I read this book. This writing propelled me to considerable academic achievement, it has influenced my career choices, and it is a central part of my life. Even my online (and nowadays offline) nickname, Axver, is connected to the book! The story I wrote featured a watercourse name that was a bastardisation of the Oxus, the Axix River. Axver, then the last name for a character, was in turn derived from Axix.
So why only 3 stars? Well, in terms of actual quality, this is not exactly a classic, despite being very readable and well suited to young children. 5 stars is my masterpiece rating, 4 stars for books that are very good but fall short of being a masterpiece, and 3 stars is for books like this - enjoyable, memorable, and worthwhile, without being exceptional examples of their type. The fact that The Far Distant Oxus was so influential on me was perhaps more due to ideal circumstances and luck. I'll certainly pass it on to any children I may have in the future, though.
September 17, 2017
A sweet story that reads like a child's ideal summer holiday. Adventure without adults!
September 23, 2014
A little uneven, but surprisingly well planned and written, for a couple of schoolgirls. Not quite up to the standard set by their idol and model, Arthur Ransome, but they were 15!! What this does offer that the Swallows and Amazons books don't, is an accurate view of what kids wish for on their holidays. It's ever so slightly juvenile, but it does come across as truer to reality than what Ransome presents.
December 29, 2010
Trip down memory lane for me. Growing up reading Arthur Ransome and filled with boats and the Swallows and Amazons, this book was a natural next for me, this time with horses. I had borrowed this book from my aunt and always wanted a copy of it, so eventually bought this new release when I found it on Amazon. Still as good as I remembered.
April 28, 2024
An adventure story in the Ransome mode written by two schoolgirls, aged 14 and 15. Over a summer holiday a group of children have adventures with ponies on Exmoor, led by a mysterious boy called Maurice. It's interesting to read; the story is very competently told and the children nicely delineated but you can spot the youth of the writers shining through. Emotions such as timidity and embarrassment, which don't always appear when adults write for children, are carefully covered. Projects get accomplished very quickly (a hut complete with glazed windows built in an afternoon; ditto six beacons built by a single person). There is also a certain unscrupulousness and disregard for other people's feelings that adult writers wouldn't have included. The children persuade an adult - the parent of some of them - to lie to the farmer and his wife who are caring for three of the other children that he has invited them to stay so that they can go away on an expedition. Tough reading as an adult - think how that would have played out if any disaster had happened. The children make lots of mistakes, but also create a rich exploratory landscape. The romancing of Maurice gets a bit tiresome but overall, it's a fascinating read that stands up even today.
June 16, 2020
It took me a while to get into this book. I have always been attracted by it and wanted to read it, but I think I would have found it dull as a teenager. As with the Swallows and Amazons books, I find it much more magical as an adult, probably because it is nostalgic for me as regards childhood and childhood adventures. When you are young and having childhood adventures reading about them is probably less interesting unless they are more fantastical. That it was written by young teenagers is remarkable. There are lovely and thoughtful descriptions about the moors and the river that aren't over the top. The children are neither nauseatingly goody-goody nor are they nasty. It was a beautiful escape. I would be happy to return.
July 23, 2022
This was written and illustrated by two teenage girls in the 1930s. They sent their manuscript to Swallows & Amazons author Arthur Ransome, who helped them get it published. I remember reading it when I was about 11, and how much I enjoyed it. I had almost forgotten it and was delighted to find a reissued edition many years later. For some reason the children in it pretend to be Persian and worship Ahura Mazda, naming their Somerset surroundings after parts of Afghanistan and northern India. There's a lovely open-air feel to the book, and the children's spirited independence and imagination was quite stirring to me as a child. I never liked Arthur Ransome though! And I positively hated Enid Blyton.
January 23, 2022
I’m really impressed that a 15 year old and a 16 year old wrote this. I’ve attempted writing a book and have never gotten further than two chapters in. This book was very Swallows and Amazons-esque, which was fun. I was just disappointed that you never find out Marius’s backstory. This is a story set in the present with no thoughts for the past or future. Not my favorite type of book, but still a good read.
July 6, 2022
I loved reading this book again. A sweet adventure story that I read in my teens. Because who wouldn’t want a fun ride across the English country side to the sea on ponies.
November 5, 2024
I really enjoyed re-reading this book. The writing is really good and the plot and characters interesting. I wonder what happened to these girls.
September 5, 2023
This book was written in secret by two schoolgirls in the 1930s and sent to Arthur Ransome, who liked it and got it published. It became quite successful and was followed by two sequels before the Second World War intervened.
It’s about children’s adventures with ponies on Exmoor, and naturally it’s dated by now, like Ransome’s own books. However, it’s very competently written (well up to the standards of adult writers for children) and makes quite a pleasant read if you like that kind of thing.
Although Ransome was clearly impressed with it (he wrote a very generous introduction), in several respects it doesn’t really match him at his best.
1. There’s a whole series of adventures in the book, but the authors manage to make the adventures seem easy: they don’t have Ransome’s knack of making a drama out of a small adventure. Thus, I reach the end of the book feeling inaccurately that nothing much happened.
2. The main characters are not very well distinguished from each other, so they seem almost interchangeable; apart from the mysterious Maurice, the very capable boy of unknown origins, who functions as the hero.
3. In a class-conscious society in which money must have had its usual importance, Ransome managed to write books in which the main characters rarely used money at all, and people of different classes mixed with each other amicably and unselfconsciously. Hull and Whitlock painted society more as they saw it: their young characters feel apart from and somewhat superior to the lower classes, they have money and they spend it as necessary, though without extravagance.
It’s worth mentioning (possibly as an advantage) that Hull and Whitlock’s characters are a bit wilder than Ransome’s. Ransome wrote as an adult and wanted his children to be adventurous, but basically well-behaved and responsible, from an adult point of view. Hull and Whitlock were close in age to their characters and didn’t yet have the adult point of view.
Thus, Ransome’s characters worry about what their parents would think of their behaviour, even when the parents are far away. The Hull and Whitlock characters take a more practical view: adult approval matters only if adults find out what you’ve been doing. This is how children actually think, rather than how parents wish them to think.
Ransome’s characters never drink alcohol; Hull and Whitlock’s are offered farm cider (which can have an alcohol content similar to wine) and knock it back as though it’s not the first time.
However, Hull and Whitlock’s characters are like Ransome’s in one respect: although some of them are in their teens, they remain children. In the 1930s, the teenager had apparently not been invented.
(This review was written in 2011)
It’s about children’s adventures with ponies on Exmoor, and naturally it’s dated by now, like Ransome’s own books. However, it’s very competently written (well up to the standards of adult writers for children) and makes quite a pleasant read if you like that kind of thing.
Although Ransome was clearly impressed with it (he wrote a very generous introduction), in several respects it doesn’t really match him at his best.
1. There’s a whole series of adventures in the book, but the authors manage to make the adventures seem easy: they don’t have Ransome’s knack of making a drama out of a small adventure. Thus, I reach the end of the book feeling inaccurately that nothing much happened.
2. The main characters are not very well distinguished from each other, so they seem almost interchangeable; apart from the mysterious Maurice, the very capable boy of unknown origins, who functions as the hero.
3. In a class-conscious society in which money must have had its usual importance, Ransome managed to write books in which the main characters rarely used money at all, and people of different classes mixed with each other amicably and unselfconsciously. Hull and Whitlock painted society more as they saw it: their young characters feel apart from and somewhat superior to the lower classes, they have money and they spend it as necessary, though without extravagance.
It’s worth mentioning (possibly as an advantage) that Hull and Whitlock’s characters are a bit wilder than Ransome’s. Ransome wrote as an adult and wanted his children to be adventurous, but basically well-behaved and responsible, from an adult point of view. Hull and Whitlock were close in age to their characters and didn’t yet have the adult point of view.
Thus, Ransome’s characters worry about what their parents would think of their behaviour, even when the parents are far away. The Hull and Whitlock characters take a more practical view: adult approval matters only if adults find out what you’ve been doing. This is how children actually think, rather than how parents wish them to think.
Ransome’s characters never drink alcohol; Hull and Whitlock’s are offered farm cider (which can have an alcohol content similar to wine) and knock it back as though it’s not the first time.
However, Hull and Whitlock’s characters are like Ransome’s in one respect: although some of them are in their teens, they remain children. In the 1930s, the teenager had apparently not been invented.
(This review was written in 2011)
December 27, 2016
This review also appears on my blog, Read-at-Home Mom.
The Far-Distant Oxus was written by two teenage girls, Katharine Hull and Pamela Whitlock, as an homage to their favorite author, Arthur Ransome of Swallows and Amazons fame. Ransome enjoyed their book so much that he recommended it to his publisher, who did in fact put it into print with an introduction by Ransome. As do the Swallows and Amazons books, the plot follows a group of British schoolchildren on holiday. Bridget, Frances, and Anthony come to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Fradd at Exmoor, where they meet Peter and Jennifer, as well as the mysterious older boy, Maurice. These children form a team of explorers who christen the places they discover with titles from literature and have a variety of adventures right in their own backyard.
The writing in this book is very inconsistent, as one would expect from the work of teenagers. Still, despite the overuse of certain phrases (these characters are forever “relapsing into silence”), the ridiculous over-romanticization of Maurice, and lack of much of an overarching plot, this book has much to offer young readers. There are some truly imaginative descriptions, including this one from the very first chapter: “From their high position they could look across the valley to a ridge of moor, and beyond that to another and another, stretching like a great purple eiderdown strewed with grey books.” There are real problems with plausible solutions and lively, realistic conversations amongst the characters. The book has flaws, but the reader becomes so wrapped up in its adventures that the problems become part of its charm.
For kids who have read the dozen Swallows and Amazons titles and aren’t quite ready to let go, this book might fulfill their longing for just a few more similar adventures. For kids who themselves aspire to write, the book also makes for wonderful inspiration and motivation. (If only today’s fan fiction were as wholesome, sweet, and earnest as The Far-Distant Oxus.)
The Far-Distant Oxus was written by two teenage girls, Katharine Hull and Pamela Whitlock, as an homage to their favorite author, Arthur Ransome of Swallows and Amazons fame. Ransome enjoyed their book so much that he recommended it to his publisher, who did in fact put it into print with an introduction by Ransome. As do the Swallows and Amazons books, the plot follows a group of British schoolchildren on holiday. Bridget, Frances, and Anthony come to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Fradd at Exmoor, where they meet Peter and Jennifer, as well as the mysterious older boy, Maurice. These children form a team of explorers who christen the places they discover with titles from literature and have a variety of adventures right in their own backyard.
The writing in this book is very inconsistent, as one would expect from the work of teenagers. Still, despite the overuse of certain phrases (these characters are forever “relapsing into silence”), the ridiculous over-romanticization of Maurice, and lack of much of an overarching plot, this book has much to offer young readers. There are some truly imaginative descriptions, including this one from the very first chapter: “From their high position they could look across the valley to a ridge of moor, and beyond that to another and another, stretching like a great purple eiderdown strewed with grey books.” There are real problems with plausible solutions and lively, realistic conversations amongst the characters. The book has flaws, but the reader becomes so wrapped up in its adventures that the problems become part of its charm.
For kids who have read the dozen Swallows and Amazons titles and aren’t quite ready to let go, this book might fulfill their longing for just a few more similar adventures. For kids who themselves aspire to write, the book also makes for wonderful inspiration and motivation. (If only today’s fan fiction were as wholesome, sweet, and earnest as The Far-Distant Oxus.)
March 4, 2012
Having read the Arthur Ransome books over and over, starting when my uncle recommended them to me in third grade, and continuing through my teen years, I was astonished to find this book on a website talking about Arthur Ransome one day recently. Written by young fans of his work, this book would be a fair accomplishment for an adult. Written be two teenagers, this book is truly fantastic, and the lack of polish is a part of its charm. I wish I had discovered it while I was still young enough to fully appreciate finding a book as fun-loving as the Swallows and Amazons series that had horses instead of boats as the passion of the main characters. Unfortunately, this excellent children's book has somehow gone out of print. The legend is that Ransome brought this book into his publisher after the authors had sent it to him, and informed his publisher that this book under his arm was going to be the best children's book of the year. Refreshingly free of the high school-style drama that children's books are often full of, and so plausible that most kids could imagine replicating the majority of the adventures. An excellent down-to-earth book in the tradition of Heidi and The Secret Garden as well as Swallows and Amazons. I wish there were many more like it.
May 5, 2014
This is the best loved, alongside Black Beauty, of all my childhood books; it harks back to an innocent era of adventure, when children could be free to roam and not worry about germs, viciousness and the dark side of the world.
There are two further books in the series - Escape to Persia and The Oxus in Summer.
There are two further books in the series - Escape to Persia and The Oxus in Summer.
September 19, 2015
The adventures of some English children in the Midlands area of England. Reminded me of some of the works of Louisa May Alcott like "Eight Cousins". A bit stiff at times like a BBC series.
October 21, 2012
Another childhood favourite.
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