Ronald Syme was born “down under” and spent his boyhood sailing off the New Zealand coast or hunting wild boars in the North Island bush country. At sixteen he left school and until he was twenty spent his time on a Pacific cargo steamer, trading between Australia, New Zealand, San Francisco, and the South Sea Islands.
During these twenty years at sea, Mr. Syme began to write, chiefly short stories. When he was thirty-one, he left the sea to become a professional writer. Until the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he lived in many places–Rome, Vienna, Paris. With the war, he joined the British Merchant Service as a gunner and saw action in the North Atlantic until the end of 1940. Twice the ship he was on was sunk. As he could speak four languages, he was transferred to the British Army Intelligence Corps. He fought with the Eighth Army in Africa, then became a paratrooper during the Italian campaign.
After the war, he settled in England and devoted himself to writing. In 1957 he sailed 1,660 miles in a twenty-ton schooner from New Zealand to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. He now lives in the South Seas and in the spring of 1960 married a Polynesian princess, Ngamarama. Her name means “Queen Star of the Moon.” Mrs. Syme was women’s tennis champion of Rarotonga and according to her husband can “deftly throw a steel-tipped spear and hit a drowsing fish ten or fifteen yards away, three times out of five.”
Mr. Syme is not to be confused with Sir Ronald Syme, Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford University.
(Excerpt from More Junior Authors edited by Muriel Fuller)
Book List:
Alexander Mackenzie, Canadian Explorer [Archives]
Amerigo Vespucci, Scientist and Sailor
African Traveler: The Story of Mary Kingsley
Balboa: Finder of the Pacific
Bay of the North: The Story of Pierre Radisson [Archives]
Benedict Arnold: Traitor of the Revolution [Archives]
Bolivar: The Liberator [Archives]
The Buccaneer Explorer
Captain Cook, Pacific Explorer
Captain John Paul Jones
Cartier: Finder of the St. Lawrence [Archives]
Colonial Élites: Rome, Spain and the Americas
Cortes of Mexico
Champlain of the St. Lawrence [Archives]
Columbus, Finder of the New World [Archives]
De Soto: Finder of the Mississippi [Archives]
First Man to Cross America: The Story of Cabeza de Vaca
Francisco Coronado and the Seven Cities of Gold [Archives]
Francis Drake, Sailor of the Unknown Seas
Francisco Pizarro: Finder of Peru [Archives]
Frontenac of New France
Fur Trader of the North: The Story of Pierre de la Verendrye [Archives]
Garibaldi: The Man Who Made a Nation
Geronimo, the Fighting Apache [Archives]
The Great Canoe
Henry Hudson
Invaders and Invasions
Isle of Revolt
John Cabot and His Son Sebastian
John Charles Fremont: The Last American Explorer
John Smith of Virginia [Archives]
Juarez, the Founder of Modern Mexico [Archives]
The Lagoon Is Lonely Now
La Salle of the Mississippi [Archives]
Magellan: First Around the World [Archives]
The Man Who Discovered the Amazon
Marquette and Joliet: Voyagers on the Mississippi [Archives]
Nigerian Pioneer: The Story of Mary Slessor [Archives]
On Foot to the Arctic: The Story of Samuel Hearne
Osceola, Seminole Leader
Quesada of Columbia
The Travels of Captain Cook
Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer [Archives]
Spaniards Came At Dawn
Toussaint: The Black Liberator
Trail to the North
The Travels of Captain Cook [Archives]
Vancouver: Explorer of the Pacific Coast [Archives]
Vasco da Gama: Sailor toward the Sunrise [Archives]
Verrazano, Explorer of the Atlantic Coast
Walter Raleigh [Archives]
William Penn: Founder of Pennsylvania
The Young Nelson
Zapata
It seems that usually his books were illustrated by William Stobbs (see above), but I have one that is also illustrated by Richard Cuffari (see below).
If you enjoy books by Ronald Syme, share your favorites below.
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