Bohemia in London.

First edition, first impression, of which 1,250 copies were printed. Bohemia in London, dedicated to fellow novelist M. P. Shiel, was Ransome's first success, based on the author's own experiences in the capital.

The chapter entitled "A Chelsea Evening" (pp. 49-63) encapsulates one of the famous "at homes" hosted by the artist, illustrator, writer, and occultist Pamela Colman Smith (1878-1951). In this evocative chapter, Ransome describes visiting Smith in the company of an actor named Wilton. When they arrive at Smith's front door it is "flung open...by a little round woman, scarcely more than a girl... She looked as if she had been the same age all her life and would be so to the end". Smith's studio "entertained many writers and artists such as Arthur Ransome, Bram Stoker, John Masefield, Lady Gregory, Florence Farr, and above all W. B. Yeats, who deeply influenced her" (Decker & Dummett, A History of the Occult Tarot, 2013).

The book's illustrator, Fred Thomas (1875-1963), worked primarily as a poster artist, particularly for the train companies and shipping lines, and his work here is very much in the mould of the Beggarstaff Brothers. He "was suggested to Ransome by his poster of a newsboy used to advertise the stationer and bookseller W. H. Smith & Son" (Hammond). His striking contribution helps to make this, in the words of Ransome's biographer Hugh Brogan, "easily the best-looking Ransome volume ever produced" (The Life of Arthur Ransome, 1984, p. 55).