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Autres archives relatives à l'auteur Robert Ballantyne cotoyant Jules Verne et Edgar Rice Burroughs dans la bibliothèque d'un auteur:
http://mural.uv.es/envimar/page7.html

L'auteur:
http://www.selfknowledge.com/22au.htm

R.M. Ballantyne (1825-1894) - in full Robert Michael - pseudonym: Comus

Scottish writer for boys, noted for the adventure story THE CORAL ISLAND (1858), which Robert Louis Stevenson acknowledged as the formative influence of his own love of the South Seas. The book has not been out of print since it first appeared. Several abridged editions have been published for young readers. Ballantyne's narrative skill, colorful settings, and resourcefulness of his heroes have secured his popularity throughout generations.

"For many months after this we continued to live on our island in uninterrupted harmony and happiness. Sometimes we went out afishing in the lagoon, and sometimes went ahunting in the woods, or ascended to the mountain-top, by way of variety, although Peterkin always asserted that we went for the purpose of hailing any ship that might chance to heave in sight. But I am certain that none of us wished to be delivered from our captivity, for we were extremely happy, and Peterkin used to say that as we were very young we should not feel the loss of a year or two." (from The Coral Island, abridged edition)
R.M. Ballantyne, the son of a newspaper editor and nephew of the Ballantyne brothers (see below), was born in Edinburgh. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy (1835-37) and privately. Bad financial investments caused the family's ruin and Ballantyne's life changed thoroughly. Between the ages of 16 and 22 he was employed in Canada by the Hudson Bay Company, trading with local Indians in remote areas. In 1847 he returned to Scotland. He was a clerk at the North British Railway Company in Edinburgh for two years, and worked then for the paper-makers Alexander Cowan and Company. From 1849 to 1855 he was junior partner of Thomas Constable and Company, a printing house.

In 1848 appeared Ballantyne's HUDSON'S BAY, OR, THE LIFE IN THE WILDS OF NORTH AMERICA. The autobiographical work depicted his youth and adventures in Canada. From 1856 he devoted himself entirely to free-lance writing and giving lectures. Ballantyne's first stories depicted the life in Canada, later works dealt with adventures in Britain, Africa, and elsewhere. After 1883 Balantyne lived in Harrow, Middlesex.

Among his other early works are SNOWFLAKES AND SUNBEAMS; OR, THE YOUNG FUR TRADER (1856), UNGAVA: A TALE OF ESKIMO LAND (1857), THE DOG CRUSOE (1860). Several of his books were based on personal experience.

The Coral Island tells a story of three English boys, Ralph Rover, the 15 years old narrator, three years older Jack, and humorous 14 year old Peterkin, who are shipwrecked on a deserted island. In the true Robinson Crusoe fashion they create an idyllic society despite typhoons, wild hogs, and hostile visitors. The boys make a fire by rubbing two sticks together and climb palm trees to gather thin-skinned coconuts - a mistake in detail Ballantyne was bitterly to regret. To sail to other islands they build a boat and make a sail out of the coconut cloth. After a fight Jack wins the native chief, Taroro. Then evil pirates kidnap Ralp whose adventures continue among the South Sea Islands. He manages to escape with one of the members of the crew, Bloody Bill, and with the pirates' schooner. Bill dies and Ralph and returns to his friends. When they try to help Avatea, a Samoan girl, to go to Christian natives, Tararo seizes them. However, an English missionary appears on the scene and Tararo becomes a Christian. Finally the three heroes return to civilization, matured and much wiser. "To part is the lot of all mankind. The world is a scene of constant leave-making, and the hands that grasp in cordial greeting today, are doomed ere long to unite for the last time, when the quivering lips pronounce the word - 'Farewell'."
Annoyed by a mistake he made in The Coral Island, Ballantyne travelled widely to gain first-hand knowledge and to research the backgrounds of his stories. He spent three weeks on Bell Rock to write THE LIGHTHOUSE (1865), and was for a short time a London fireman (FIGHTING THE FLAMES, 1867), for DEEP DOWN (1868) he lived with the tinminers of St. Just for over three months. Experiences as a fireman on board the tender of the London-to Edinburgh express and weeks on the Gull Lightship also gave material for his subsequent novels. Ballantyne was especially careful with the details of local flora and fauna, giving his dramatic adventures, capture and escape, shipwrecks and other colorful events and believable settings.

During his career Ballantyne wrote over 80 books. In 1866 he married Jane Dickson Grant; they had four sons and two daughters. Ballantyne died in Rome, Italy, on February 8, 1894.

Ballantyne opened views into the world, that just waited for brave explorers, for the sons of the rapidly expanding literati of middle- and working-class families. He became the hero of Victorian youth. Ballantyne's straitjacketed Puritanism did not arouse any questions, and the lighthearted descriptions of the slaughter of fauna and natives of the islands were then passed without comment. With his books Ballantyne made his contribution to the success of missionaries, soldiers, sailors, trail-blazers, the exploiters of the great British Empire.

James Ballantyne (1772-1833), brother of John Ballantyne, at first a solicitor, then a printer in Kelso and later in Edinburgh. Although his printing business with his brother and Walter Scott was highly successful, he was bankrupted by the crash of Constable and Co. in 1826. Scott named him Aldiborontiphoscophoria after a character in H. Carey's burlesque Chrononhotonthologos. - John Ballantyne (1774-1821), brother of James Ballantyne, became in 1809 manager of the publishing firm started by himself and Sir Walter Scott, who named him 'Rigdum-Funnidos' after a character in Henry Carey's (1687?-1743) burlesque Chrononhotonthologos.
For further reading: The young fur trader; the story of R. M. Ballantyne by L. C. Rodd (1966); Ballantyne the Brave by Eric Quayle (1967); R.M. Ballantyne: a bibliography of first editions by Eric Quayle (1968); The Robinsonade Tradition in Robert Michael Ballantyne's the Choral Island and William Golding's the Lord of the Flies by Karin Siegl (1996); St James Guide to Children's Writers, ed. by Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast (1999) - Note: Suomeksi on käännetty myös mm. Pikku Ailin matka maailman merillä. Kirjailijan tunnetuin teos, Korallisaari, ilmestyi suomeksi ensimmäisen kerran 1918. Kariston julkaisemana Crusoe-koirasta ja Gorillanmetsästäjistä otettiin uusintapainokset 1989. - See also: William Golding's Lord of the Flies -
Selected works:

HUDSON'S BAY, OR, LIFE IN THE WILDS OF NORTH AMERICA, 1848
SNOWFLAKES AND SUNBEAMS; OR, THE YOUNG FUR TRADER, 1856
THREE LITTLE KITTENS, 1856 (as Comus)
MISTER FOX, 1857 (as Comus)
MY MOTHER (CHIT-CHAT), 1857 (as Comus)
THE LIFE OF A SHIP FROM THE LAUNCH TO THE WRECK, 1857
UNGAVA: A TALE OF ESKIMO LAND, 1857
THE CORAL ISLAND, 1857 - Korallisaari
UNGAVA, 1858
THE ROBBER KITTEN, 1858 (as Comus)
MARTIN RATTLER, 1858
MEE-A-OW!, 1859
THE WORLD OF ICE, 1860
THE DOG CRUSOE, 1860 - Crusoe-koira - see Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe
THE GOLDEN DREAM, 1861
THE GORILLA HUNTERS, A TALE OF THE WILDS OF AFRICA, 1861 - Gorillanmetsästäjät
THE RED ERIC, 1861
THE WILD MAN OF THE WEST, 1863
FIGHTING THE WHALES, 1863
AWAY IN THE WILDERNESS, 1863
FAST IN THE ICE, 1863
GASCOYNE, 1864
THE LIFEBOAT, 1864
CHASING THE SUN, 1864
FREAKS ON THE FELLS, 1864
THE LIGHTHOUSE, 1865
SHIFTING WINDS, 1866
FIGHTING THE FLAMES, 1867
SILVER LAKE, 1867
DEEP DOWN, 1868
ERLING THE BOLD, 1869
SUNK AT SE, 1869
LOST IN THE FOREST, 1869
OVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, 1869
SAVED BY THE LIFEBOAT, 1869
THE CANNIBAL ISLAND, 1869
HUNTING THE LIONS, 1869
DIGGING FOR GOLD, 1869
UP IN THE CLOUDS, 1869
THE BATTLE AND THE BREEZE, 1869
THE FLOATING LIGHT OF THE GOODWIN SANDS, 1870
THE IRON HORSE, 1871
THE PIONEERS, 1872
THE NORSEMEN IN THE WEST, 1872
LIFE IN THE RED BRIGADE, 1873
BLACK IVORY, 1873
THE PIRATE CITY, 1874
RIVERS OF ICE, 1875
THE STORY OF THE ROCK, 1875
UNDER THE WAVES, 1876
THE SETTLER AND THE SAVAGE, 1877
IN THE TRACK OF THE TROOPS, 1878
JARWIN AND CUFFY, 1878
PHILOSOPHER JACK, 1880
THE LONELY ISLAND, 1880
POST HASTE, 1880
THE RED MAN'S REVENGE, 1880
MY DOGGIE AND I, 1881
THE GIANT OF THE NORTH, 1882
THE KITTEN PILGRIMS, 1882
THE BATTERY AND THE BOILER, 883
BATTKLES WITH THE SEA, 1883
THE THOROGOOD FAMILY, 18883
MADMAN AND THE PIRATE, 1883
DUSTU DIAMINDS ARECUT AND POLISHED, 1884
THE YOUNG TRAVELER, 1884
TWICE BOUGHT, 1885
THE ROVER OF THE ANDES, 1885
THE ISLAND QUEEN, 1885
RED ROONEY, 1886
THE PRAIRIE CHIEF, 1886
THE LIVELY POLL, 1886
THE BIG OTTER, 1887
THE FUGITIVES, 1887
BLUE LIGHTS, 1888
THE MIDDY AND THE MOORS (SLAVE OF THE MOORS), 1888
THE CREW OF THE WATER WAGTAIL, 1889
THE EAGLE CLIFF, 1889
BLOWN TO BITS, 1889
THE GARRET AND THE GARDEN, 1890
CHARLIE TO THE RESCUE, 1890
THE BUFFALO RUNNERS, 1891
THE COXSWAIN'S BRIDE, 1891
THE HOT SWAMP, 1892
HUNTED AND HARRIED, 1892
THE WALRUS HUNTERS, 1893
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF BOOK-MAKING, 1893
REUBEN'S LUCK, 1896

Son oeuvre:
http://www.uni-bayreuth.de/departments/ ... T-Sur8.htm (lisez la notice de Defoe)

R.M.Ballantyne never visited the Pacific but the colorful fiction he wrote in England circa 1843 became a major influence on children's literature. Young Robert Louis Stevenson was a great admirer of R.M.Ballantyne. "Lord of the Flies" was a 20th Century response to the 19th Century genre of altruistic boy's adventure stories that followed Ballantyne's highly successful novel "The Coral Island".
Where did Ballantyne get his information? Relatively few Europeans had visited the area he clearly described between Fiji & Samoa prior to the 1840s. Perhaps he got specific detailed accounts from an earlier book or from missionaries, whalers or members of the Wilkes or Belcher expeditions who may have visited the Lau Islands and then England prior to 1843 (please, does anyone know?).

Much of the action in Ballantyne's novel takes place on an island called "Mango" inhabited by fierce natives. That was apparently Mago Island in the Northern Lau Group in Fiji whose native population was displaced in the 1860s when Europeans moved in. Coincidentally it was three adventuresome young brothers who purchased Mago and landed there in their own boat a couple of decades after "The Coral Island" was written. Had they read Ballantyne's novel?? They made a fortune growing sea island cotton during the American Civil War. Mago Island and the plantation pioneered by the young Ryder brothers is today owned by the Tokyu Corporation of Japan and is practically uninhabited.

this novel is a creative and educational story of three shipwrecked boys on a Coral Island and how they learn to survive in the wilderness and encouter natives and pirates. Captured by pirates, Ralph escapes back to the island and returns to Fiji with Jack and Peterkin to try and sort out family problems with some of the natives they met. This makes for an intersting conclusion...

Le roman s'intitule Coral Island.
http://encyclopediaoftheself.com/classi ... oril10.htm