R. M. Ballantyne

Adventure and peril abound in a classic tale of shipwreck and survivalRalph, Jack, and Peterkin find themselves the sole survivors of a shipwreck on a deserted coral island in the South Pacific. Although fate has led them to temporary safety, the three marooned boys are forced to carve out a life for themselves from what nature provides. They rapidly learn which fruit to eat, which animals to hunt, and which lagoons are best for bathing. Resourceful...

In this heart-warming tale of love, life, laughter, and tragedy (with some smuggling thrown in), travel back in time to explore life set amongst the people living near the tin and copper mines of St. Just, Cornwall, in the mid-nineteenth century. During the mid-1860s, R.M. Ballantyne spent over three months living amongst the Cornish mineworkers of St. Just. There, amidst the dangers of the deep mines, a story of courage, contentment, and adversity...

The Pirate City is a story about the Algerian pirates who were the scourge of the Mediterranean sea during the early to mid-1800s. They would plunder the ships of other sovereign nations, and as a result were a wealthy little city-state until their demise in the Barbary War. In this tale, set during the heyday of the pirates, a merchant and his sons Mariano and Lucien are captured aboard their trading vessel and taken as prisoners to the pirate capital...

(Excerpt): "Ailie had been nearly thrown out of her berth when the ship lay over, and now when she listened to the water hissing and gurgling past the little port that lighted her cabin, and felt the staggering of the vessel. As burst after burst of the hurricane almost tore the masts out of her, she lay trembling with anxiety and debating with herself whether or not she ought to rise and go on deck."

This is the tale of a giant Eskimo, Screekinbroot, also called Chingatok. Journey with our young heroes into the frozen tundra and icy waters of the North Pole regions for encounters with Eskimo peoples and to learn about their life and what it is like when the Kabiunets comes to the Arctic. Captain Vane, his son Benjamin, and his two nephews Leo and Alf come in search of the North Pole. When their ship, The White Bear, gets stuck in the ice, the...

(Excerpt): "A solitary horseman-a youth in early manhood-riding at a snail's pace over the great plains, or karroo, of South Africa. His chin on his breast; his hands in the pockets of an old shooting-coat; his legs in ragged trousers, and his feet in worn-out boots. Regardless of stirrups, the last are dangling. The reins hang on the neck of his steed, whose head may be said to dangle from its shoulders, so nearly does its nose approach the ground....

Excerpt: "Early on a summer morning, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, two fishermen of Forfarshire wended their way to the shore, launched their boat, and put off to sea. One of the men was tall and ill favored, the other, short and well-favored. Both were square-built, powerful fellows, like most men of the class to which they belonged. It was about that calm hour of the morning, which precedes sunrise, when most living creatures are...

(Excerpt): "It is evident that the land over there is peopled with savages who, probably, never saw white men before. If we treat these young fellows kindly, and send them away with gifts in their hands, we shall, no doubt, make friends of the savages. If we treat them ill, or kill them, their relations will come over, mayhap in swarms, and drive us into the sea. I drop the Swinton law of might being right, and ask you who are now the law-makers --...

Excerpt: "Sitting under a pine-tree, in the wild wilderness that lies to the north of Canada with the drumstick of a goose in one hand and a scalping-knife in the other; with a log-fire in front of him, and his son, a stripling of sixteen, by his side, he delivered himself of the following sentiments..."

Excerpt: "The problem of colonization in the north-western portion of British America is fast working itself out. The same destiny which pushed forward Anglo-Saxon energy and intelligence into the rich plains of Mexico, and which has peopled Australia, is now turning the current of emigration to another of the "waste-places of the earth." The discovery of extensive goldfields in the extreme west of the territories now occupied by the Hudson's Bay...