Reading order

Swallows and Amazons series reading order

Arthur Ransome

Swallows and Amazons1930
Swallowdale1931
Peter Duck1932
Winter Holiday1933
Coot Club1934
Pigeon Post1936
We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea1937
Secret Water1939
The Big Six1940
Missee Lee1941
The Picts and the Martyrs1943
Great Northern?1947
Every volume in order (13) ↓

7.87.8 / 10
75 ratings
Score: 13 volumes
Volumes: 1930–1988
Published: about 95 h
Reading time: Completed
Status: Adventure
Genre

Children’s books

Quick answer

Start withSwallows and Amazons1930

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Publication order

13 volumes1930–1988Completed

Twelve books over seventeen years, and they are best read in order because the children grow: the Walkers and Blacketts age across the series, gain younger siblings and lose the freedom the first books are made of.
Start with Swallows and Amazons.
Two of the twelve are different in kind — Peter Duck and Missee Lee are adventures the children invent rather than live, pirate stories told in a houseboat over a winter, so a reader who wants the real lakes can skip them and lose nothing.
Coots in the North is an unfinished fragment published forty years later.

A plan for the whole series

13 volumes, 5,185 pages, about 95 hours. At 45 min a day that is about 4 months.

Per day: 45 min

Stages

6 stages, with 5 short books from outside the series between them. You finish around March 29, 2027, about 4 weeks later than in one go.

1
Stage 115 h20 daysby November 18, 2026
- 1. Swallows and Amazons1930 · 362 pages · 7 h
- 2. Swallowdale1931 · 453 pages · 8 h
Short breakThe Fire Next Time · James Baldwin · 120 pp. · score 8.82 h, by November 22, 2026. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
2
Stage 214 h19 daysby December 11, 2026
- 3. Peter Duck1932 · 432 pages · 8 h
- 4. Winter Holiday1933 · 352 pages · 6 h
Short breakThe Emperor's Soul · Brandon Sanderson · 96 pp. · score 8.82 h, by December 14, 2026. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
3
Stage 320 habout 4 weeksby January 10, 2027
BreakMaus · Art Spiegelman · 295 pp. · score 9.05 h, by January 19, 2027. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
4
Stage 416 h21 daysby February 9, 2027
- 8. Secret Water1939 · 422 pages · 8 h
- 9. The Big Six1940 · 424 pages · 8 h
Short breakOn Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century · Timothy Snyder · 128 pp. · score 8.42 h, by February 13, 2027. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
5
Stage 516 habout 3 weeksby March 7, 2027
- 10. Missee Lee1941 · 401 pages · 7 h
- 11. The Picts and the Martyrs1943 · 496 pages · 9 h
Short breakAnimal Farm · George Orwell · 128 pp. · score 8.32 h, by March 11, 2027. A short book from another shelf, so you come back to the series hungry.
6
Stage 614 h19 daysby March 29, 2027
- 12. Great Northern?1947 · 358 pages · 7 h
- 13. Coots in the North1988 · ≈ 399 pages · 7 h
The end of the series
March 29, 2027

In one goMarch 5, 2027about 4 months

In stages, with breaksMarch 29, 2027about 5 months · +14 h of other books

We count 1.1 min per page, the pace of an average novel reader. Faster? Move the slider.

≈ next to a page count: a volume with no page count in our data is counted at this series’s average.

How this plan is calculated

The plan comes from the pages and ratings of each volume: we split the series into stages of about three weeks’ reading, size each break to the stage before it, and read the chance of finishing from how many readers rate the last volume compared with the first. How we work out the plan →

Every volume in order

Read: 0 of 13

Order checked by hand · Order and years: Wikidata (CC0). Spotted an error? Tell us. · Data updated October 29, 2026

Frequently asked questions

Which Swallows and Amazons series book is the longest?

“The Picts and the Martyrs” is the longest at 496 pages; the shortest is “We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea” with 351 pages.