The Cannibal Islands by R.M. Ballantyne, Fiction, Classics, Action & Adventure de R. M. Ballantyne

The Cannibal Islands by R.M. Ballantyne, Fiction, Classics, Action & Adventure

R. M. Ballantyne

One of the young men influenced by Ballantyne was Robert Louis Stevenson. He was so impressed with the story of The Coral Island (1857) that he based portions of his famous book Treasure Island (1881) on themes found in Ballantyne. He honoured Ballantyne in the introduction to Treasure Island with the following poem: To the Hesitating Purchaser If sailor tales to sailor tunes, Storm and adventure, heat and cold, If schooners, islands, and maroons, And buccaneers, and buried gold, And all the old romance, retold Exactly in the ancient way, Can please, as me they pleased of old, The wiser youngsters of today: So be it, and fall on If not, If studious youth no longer crave, His ancient appetites forgot, Kingston, or Ballantyne the brave, Or Cooper of the wood and wave: So be it, also And may I And all my pirates share the grave Where these and their creations lie
WAS CAPTAIN COOK COOKED?
Of all the explorers, navigators and geographers of the planet Earth, few have surpassed the accomplishments of the English commander Captain James Cook in the eighteenth century.
Of all the popular accounts of Captain Cook's voyages, none had focused so compellingly on the gustatory habits of the "savages" encountered on balmy paradises of the South Sea islands than this remarkable and engrossing documentation by the historical novelist R. M. Ballantyne.
With clear and compelling prose and most of all with Victorian sensibilities at full throttle, Ballyntine takes a few pages to sketch in some of the great Captain's biography -- but mostly revels in bloodthirsty battles and gruesome details of South Seas atrocities -- cannibalism just one of a long list.
So batten your hatches, pull up your anchor and prepare to sail into a true tale of gruesome and self-righteous horror -- and page-turning entertainment.

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Robert Michael Ballantyne was a Scottish writer of young adult literature who produced more than a hundred novels between 24 April 1825 and 8 February 1894. He was a talented artist as well; several of his watercolors were displayed at the Royal Scottish Academy. Ballantyne was conceived in Edinburgh, where he was born. He moved to Canada at the age of 16, where he worked for the Hudson's Bay Company for five years. During that time, his yearning for his family and his home inspired him to begin sending letters to his mother. Ballantyne discovered the death of his father upon his return to Scotland in 1847. The next year, Hudson's Bay: or, Life in the Wilds of North America, was released as his debut book. He gave up his business in 1856 to concentrate on his writing career. His writing policy was to be as close to his own firsthand experience of the situations he depicted. Ballantyne spent his final years in Harrow, London, before relocating to Italy for his health. He may have had Ménière's illness, which was not yet recognized. He passed away in Rome on February 8, 1894, and was laid to rest in the city's Protestant Cemetery.