R M Ballantyne: 313 books

A tale of adventure and evangelism, Ballantyne transforms into engaging historical fiction the well-known facts of the Icelandic Saga--stories of exploration and adventure, blessed marriage, alternating turmoil and peace with indigenous people--all sprinkled with delightful and humorous stories of...

Set in the outback of Canada this book unfolds in the area with which Ballantyne was so familiar. If you like to read about this area you will find lots in this book to amuse you. (Excerpt from Chapter I): "On the northern shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence there stood, not very long ago, a...

Published three years after his phenomenally successful "The Coral Island", ""The Gorilla Hunters" finds Ballantyne bringing back three friends from previous novel but this time they are grown up men and instead of Pacific, the story is set somewhere in Africa. (Goodreads)

Born Robert Michael Ballantyne in Edinburgh, he was part of a famous family of printers and publishers. At the age of 16 he went to Canada and where he served for six years with the Hudson's Bay Company. He returned to Scotland in 1847, and published his first book the following year, Hudson's Bay:...

Very nice read. Ballantyne does a great job of painting a realistic, gritty picture of Africa, and of safari hunting from in the old days. (Goodreads)

(Excerpt): “... Edward died in some outlandish place in North America, I never can remember the name, but it’s in the papers, so you’ll see it—somewhere on the other side of the something mountains—I forget—” “Rocky, perhaps.” “Yes, that’s it, the Rocky Mountains, and I wish...

In this story, the follow-up look at what happened with the escaped mutineers of the famous ship the H.M.S. Bounty. It begins with a recounting of the famous mutiny and the casting adrift of Captain Bligh instigated by Fletcher Christian and his comrades due to severe treatment of the men by the infamous...

Excerpt: "One beautiful summer night, about the beginning of the present century, a young naval officer entered the public drawing-room of a hotel at Nice, and glanced round as if in search of some one. Many people were assembled there—some in robust, others in delicate, health, many in that...

(Excerpt): “Dear Jack,—You’ll be surprised to see my fist, but not more surprised than I was to hear from an old hunter just arrived, that you had taken to farming. It’s not your forte, Jack, my boy. Be advised. Sell off the farm for what it will fetch, and come and join me. My antecedents...

A Hero who rose from the Ranks. More than a hundred years ago, there lived a man who dwelt in a mud cottage in the county of York; his name was Cook. He was a poor, honest labourer—a farm servant. This man was the father of that James Cook who lived to be a captain in the British Navy, and who, before...

Excerpt: "Though our foe cannot be slain, he can, like the genii of Eastern story, be baffled. In the days of old, the Storm had it nearly all his own way. Hearts, indeed, were not less brave, but munitions of war were wanting. In this matter, as in everything else, the world is better off now...

Three boys, fifteen-year-old Ralph Rover, eighteen-year-old Jack Martin, and fourteen-year-old Peterkin Gay, are the sole survivors of a shipwreck on the coral reef of a large but uninhabited Polynesian island. At first their life on the island is idyllic; food, in the shape of fruits, fish and wild...