The Far-Distant Oxus is a children’s novel of 1937, written by Katharine Hull (1921–1977) and Pamela Whitlock (1920–1982). The title comes from Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...

's poem Sohrab and Rustum.

Hull and Whitlock met when they were schoolchildren (fourteen and fifteen respectively), whilst sheltering from a thunderstorm. They discovered shared interests and decided to write a story about ponies set on Exmoor

Exmoor

Exmoor is an area of hilly open moorland in west Somerset and north Devon in South West England, named after the main river that flows out of the district, the River Exe. The moor has given its name to a National Park, which includes the Brendon Hills, the East Lyn Valley, the Vale of Porlock and ...

. They planned out the entire book and wrote alternate chapters, exchanging them afterwards to edit. The story follows the model of the books of Arthur Ransome

Arthur Ransome

Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist, best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. These tell of school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. Many of the books involve sailing; other common subjects...

, describing the school holiday adventures of children of prosperous families, centred on outdoor activity and a vividly imagined landscape: Ransome had boats and Windermere

Windermere

Windermere is the largest natural lake of England. It is also a name used in a number of places, including:-Australia:* Lake Windermere , a reservoir, Australian Capital Territory * Lake Windermere...

, The Far-Distant Oxus had ponies and Exmoor.

Whitlock sent the manuscript to Ransome in March 1937; he in turn brought it to his publisher Jonathan Cape

Jonathan Cape

Jonathan Cape was a London-based publisher founded in 1919 as "Page & Co" by Herbert Jonathan Cape , formerly a manager at Duckworth who had worked his way up from a position of bookshop errand boy. Cape brought with him the rights to cheap editions of the popular author Elinor Glyn and sales of...

, saying that he had "the best children's book of 1937" for him. Cape published the book in the same format as Swallows and Amazons

Swallows and Amazons

Swallows and Amazons is the first book in the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome; it was first published in 1930, with the action taking place in the summer of 1929 in the Lake District...

, and persuaded Arthur Ransome

Arthur Ransome

Arthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist, best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. These tell of school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. Many of the books involve sailing; other common subjects...

 to write the introduction. The book, with illustrations by Whitlock, was indeed successful; contemporary reviewers were impressed and critics today are still positive. The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books comments that it is "as absorbing as Ransome at his best". The two authors followed it with Escape to Persia (1938), The Oxus in Summer (1939) and Crowns (1947).

Fidra Books

Fidra Books

Fidra Books is a publisher based in Edinburgh which specialises in reissuing forgotten children's books, especially those from the 1940s onwards....

reissued the novel in August, 2008.