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.
