Prize for Roland Chambers THE LAST ENGLISHMAN

Roland Chambers has been awarded Best First Biography by the Biographer's Club.

His book The Last Englishman: The Double Life of Arthur Ransome, about the Swallows and Amazons author, beat entries from David Waller, who was runner-up for The Magnificent Mrs Tennant, Dawn French, Janice Galloway, Allegra Huston and Anna Whitelock.

The prizegiving took place at the Biographers’ Club dinner in Whitehall on the 22nd October. The speaker was Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire author Amanda Foreman, and master of ceremonies was broadcaster and journalist James Naughtie.

Chambers has won widespread acclaim for his study of the secret life of Ransome. Arthur Ransome is best remembered as the author of the series of books
that began with Swallows and Amazons and sold millions of copies around
the world. But before he became the jolly Lakeland storyteller,
offering idyllic images of brave children messing about in boats,
Ransome had spent a decade in Russia and lived a very different life as
a spokesman for authoritarianism and violence. He went there in 1913 as
a struggling young freelance writer and made friends with leading
Russian liberals, and wrote a fine book of tales based on Russian folk
legends. But as the country sank into chaos and war, Ransome was dramatically caught
up in the whirlwind of revolution. Always impressionable and eager to
please, he gained the confidence of the Bolshevik leadership and
became, for three crucial years, their main defender and propagandist
in the West. His reports in the "Guardian" were uncritical and
disingenuous. "MI6" considered him an agent of a foreign power; British
officials argued that he should not be allowed to return to Britain.
Yet at the same time, while Ransome was so intimate with the Communist
leadership that he could get exclusive interviews with Lenin - who he
portrayed as an avuncular, folksy, straight-talking politician - he was
also offering to help elements of the British intelligence services
with information about what was going on in Russia. Roland Chambers unravels this complex and fascinating life with precision and elan.