The War of the Birds and the Beasts and other Russian tales was published after Arthur Ransomes death in 1984, and includes 'The Soldier and Death' which was first published in 1920. Some of the stories had been published in Country Life or The Wheatsheaf, but others were in typescript or holograph in the Brotherton Collection. The editor Hugh Brogan said they required little editing, but he eliminated a few anti-Semitic details which reflected social conditions in the old Russian Empire, but have no place in English books for children today.