''Missee Lee'' is the tenth book of

Arthur Ransome Arthur Michell Ransome (18 January 1884 – 3 June 1967) was an English author and journalist. He is best known for writing and illustrating the ''Swallows and Amazons'' series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of childre ...

Swallows and Amazons series The ''Swallows and Amazons'' series is a series of twelve children's adventure novels by English author Arthur Ransome. Set in the interwar period, the novels involve group adventures by children, mainly in the school holidays and mainly in En ...

of children's books, set in 1930s

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. The Swallows and Amazons are on a round-the-world trip with

Captain Flint Captain J. Flint is a fictional golden age pirate captain who features in a number of novels, television series, and films. The original character was created by the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894). Flint first appears in ...

aboard the

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...

''Wild Cat''. After the ''Wild Cat'' sinks, they escape in the boats ''Swallow'' and ''Amazon'', but are separated in a storm. Both

dinghies A dinghy is a type of small boat, often carried or towed by a larger vessel for use as a tender. Utility dinghies are usually rowboats or have an outboard motor. Some are rigged for sailing but they differ from sailing dinghies, which ...

eventually end up in the lair of the Three Island

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

s—Chang, Woo and Lee—where they are held prisoner by the unusual Missee Lee, the leader of the Three Island pirates. The book, published in 1941, is considered one of the

metafiction Metafiction is a form of fiction which emphasises its own narrative structure in a way that continually reminds the audience that they are reading or viewing a fictional work. Metafiction is self-conscious about language, literary form, and story ...

al books in the series, along with ''

Peter Duck ''Peter Duck'' is the third book in the ''Swallows and Amazons'' series by Arthur Ransome. The Swallows and Amazons sail to Crab Island with Captain Flint and Peter Duck, an old sailor, to recover buried treasure. During the voyage the ''Wildcat ...

'' and perhaps '' Great Northern?''

Sources

Ransome visited China in 1926 and 1927, where he learned about Chinese life and culture. He also met, amongst others

Soong Ching-ling Rosamond Soong Ch'ing-ling (27 January 189329 May 1981) was a Chinese political figure. As the third wife of Sun Yat-sen, then Premier of the Kuomintang and President of the Republic of China, she was often referred to as Madame Sun Yat-sen. ...

, the wife of

Sun Yat-sen Sun Yat-sen (; also known by several other names; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925)Singtao daily. Saturday edition. 23 October 2010. section A18. Sun Yat-sen Xinhai revolution 100th anniversary edition . was a Chinese politician who serve ...

. Ransome said that he based many of Missee Lee's characteristics on her, though there were others who contributed to the character.

Plot summary

The book opens with the Swallows, Amazons and Captain Flint in an unnamed port in the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...

, apparently the Hundredth Port of a round-the-world voyage aboard the ''

Wild Cat Felidae () is the family of mammals in the order Carnivora colloquially referred to as cats, and constitutes a clade. A member of this family is also called a felid (). The term "cat" refers both to felids in general and specifically to the dom ...

'', the small green

featured in

. They are warned to stay away from the

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

coast because of

pirates Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

. On the next stage of their voyage, they encounter a dead calm. Their monkey, Gibber, causes a fire, which burns the ''Wild Cat'' to the waterline, causing her to sink. They all escape aboard the ''Swallow'' and ''Amazon'', which are being used as ship's boats. However, the boats are separated in the night when a strong wind blows up. The crew of the Amazon, the Blackett sisters and their uncle, is picked up by a junk, which turns out to be a pirate vessel. The Swallows make their own way to shore, where they eventually meet the Amazons, who are being held by Taicoon Chang, one of the Taicoons who rule the Three Islands. Captain Flint is kept under much stricter guard by the Taicoon, who hopes to

ransom Ransom is the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release, or the sum of money involved in such a practice. When ransom means "payment", the word comes via Old French ''rançon'' from Latin ''red ...

him, as he claims to be the Lord Mayor of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. The children are sent to Missee Lee, the leader of the pirates. She turns out to be a frustrated academic from

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, who had been sent to England for her education, only to have to return to rule the Three Islands when her father died. She starts to give the children

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

lessons, at which Roger surprisingly excels. Captain Flint is also bought from Taicoon Chang who has threatened to chop off his head. The pirates are concerned that if the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

were to learn their position, a

gunboat A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies. History Pre-steam ...

might be sent to destroy them, so when Captain Flint is later seen by the other Taicoon, Wu, with a

sextant A sextant is a doubly reflecting navigation instrument that measures the angular distance between two visible objects. The primary use of a sextant is to measure the angle between an astronomical object and the horizon for the purposes of celes ...

, they are only saved from having their heads chopped off by Missee Lee's intervention. As they consider that they are still in danger of execution and are also becoming fed up with the Latin lessons, they plan an escape. During the

Dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

festival, they set sail aboard Missee Lee's junk, the ''Shining Moon''. With the help of Missee Lee, who has decided to leave her responsibilities on the Three Islands and go back to study at Cambridge, they take a daring and dangerous passage through a gorge to evade capture. However, when Missee Lee hears fighting begin between the various islanders, she decides that she owes it to her father and her people to return and unite them again. The Swallows, Amazons and Captain Flint return to England aboard the ''Shining Moon''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Missee Lee 1941 British novels 1941 children's books Jonathan Cape books Novels set in China Swallows and Amazons series