The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean

Robert Michael BallantyneProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.8
Word count
540K words
Chapters
54

Tags

English Originals Foreign LiteratureChildren's Literature CompanionshipIsland SurvivalInspirationTest of CourageComing of AgeAdventure NovelColonial NarrativeNature WritingPacific OceanVictorian Youth

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean by R. M. BallantyneAuthor: Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert Michael), 1825-1894,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Dec 1, 2004

Editor's review

The Coral Island is R. M. Ballantyne's classic adventure novel for young readers. Set on a deserted island in the Pacific, it follows three boys who, after a shipwreck, rely on courage and cooperation to survive in nature. Its value lies not only in its exciting plot but in the way it distills the tastes of nineteenth-century adventure fiction: marine ecology, nautical knowledge, island survival details and social assumptions are interwoven, making it both informative and marked by its era. As a public-domain eBook from Project Gutenberg, it is easy to search and check against the original text at any time, making it suitable as an introduction to English literature, a coming-of-age read for young people, or a text for studying adventure fiction. On first reading, readers are quickly drawn in by the survival tasks and island scenery; on closer reading, they may note how the narrator handles civilization and savagery, courage and order. One caveat: the book carries the conceptual limitations of its author's time, and today's readers should examine them with historical perspective rather than treating its characterizations as universal standards. It rewards slow reading and also invites comparison with works such as Robinson Crusoe, through which one can trace the evolution of adventure fiction.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read through the story first; when nautical and island-biology terms appear, skip them for now to keep the reading rhythm
  2. After finishing, look up the author's life and the background of nineteenth-century adventure fiction, then revisit the characterizations
  3. Read alongside Robinson Crusoe and compare how the two works treat wilderness, civilization and growing up

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54

FAQ

Is this book suitable for English beginners to read directly? The original is nineteenth-century English, and its sentence patterns and vocabulary pose a certain barrier for contemporary beginners. If you already have basic reading ability, you can first read an abridged or translated version to get familiar with the plot, then return to the public-domain original, using the eBook's search function to handle unfamiliar words, which will make reading much less demanding.
What period limitations should readers note? The work carries the civilized-superiority perspective common to nineteenth-century adventure fiction; its depictions of island inhabitants and "savagery" reflect the assumptions of the author's era. Read it as a historical text, paying attention to how the narrative stance is formed, rather than taking the book's judgments directly as fact.
What are the advantages of using the public-domain eBook edition? The Project Gutenberg edition is free, easy to download and full-text searchable, making it suitable for classroom excerpts, checking against the original, and keyword searches. Readers can split it by chapter for reading and easily compare it with different editions or translations, using it as a base text for study and research.

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About the author

Robert Michael Ballantyne Author · United Kingdom · 1825–1894

Robert Michael Ballantyne (1825–1894) was a Scottish writer of children's literature, born in Edinburgh. At sixteen he went to Canada and worked for the Hudson's Bay Company for six years, an experience that later supplied material for his adventure stories; after returning to Scotland in 1847 he devoted himself to writing and produced more than a hundred adventure novels, of which ninety-seven are held in this collection. His representative works include The Coral Island, The Dog Crusoe and his Master, Black Ivory, The Lighthouse and Martin Rattler, mostly drawing on seafaring, desert-island and frontier adventure, with tight plots and solid detail that combine instruction with appeal for young readers. He was also skilled in watercolour painting. Public information on his early education and private life is limited.