Bøker av Robert Michael Ballantyne

Three teenage boys, the sole survivors of a shipwreck, find themselves marooned on a deserted island in the South Pacific. With little more than a telescope and a broken knife, the youths must find food and shelter and learn to survive. But though the coral island is a tropical paradise, full of natural beauty and exotic fruits and wildlife, dangers and adventures abound: sharks, pirates, and even bloodthirsty cannibals!Scottish-born R.M. Ballantyne (1825-1894) wrote more than ninety books for young people during the Victorian era, the most famous of which is The Coral Island (1857), a tale whose popularity has proved so enduring that it has never been out of print. A thrilling story in the tradition of Robinson Crusoe and a key influence on later classics such as Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and William Golding's Lord of the Flies, The Coral Island is presented here in a new scholarly edition that includes the unabridged text of the first British edition, a new introduction and notes by Ralph Crane and Lisa Fletcher, and the original illustrations by the author.

When three boys find themselves shipwrecked on a South Pacific island, they must learn to survive in a sometimes beautiful, sometimes deadly new world. Sharks, cannibals, and pirates are only the start of their adventures. A classic tale of high adventure and boyhood courage!

In 1841, aged just sixteen, the intrepid young Scotsman Robert M. Ballantyne (1825-94) joined the Hudson's Bay Company. Posted immediately to North-Eastern Canada, he spent five years traversing the region's inhospitable terrain by sleigh and canoe. His journal and letters home were so evocative that, upon his return, he was persuaded to publish an account of his experiences. Combining anthropological observations with descriptions of landscapes, plants, and animals, the account was applauded by the Dundee Courier for 'opening up a mine of information to the curious' and 'describing the everyday life of a novel and singular existence' with 'buoyancy and animation'. Appearing within a year of the first edition in 1848, the second edition reproduced here is illustrated throughout with views and vignettes. 'Free from tedious details and unnecessary wordiness', Ballantyne's fast-moving and readable narrative challenges many misconceptions about nineteenth-century Canada and its indigenous peoples.