The Walrus Hunters: A Romance of the Realms of Ice

Robert Michael BallantyneProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
504K words
Chapters
51

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Harsh NatureMan and NatureHunting LifeSurvival ChallengeArctic RomancePolar AdventureForging CourageAdventure NarrativeIcy WildernessNorthern Frontier

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 Walrus Hunters: A Romance of the Realms of Ice by R. M. BallantyneAuthor: Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert Michael), 1825-1894,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Jun 6, 2007

Editor's review

This work comes from the nineteenth-century British author Ballantyne and is a typical polar adventure romance. Set on the ice fields, the story revolves around a voyage to hunt walruses, combining descriptions of natural scenery with tense plotting. Ballantyne excelled at blending geographical knowledge with boys' adventure narrative; the book's portrayals of the polar environment, seafaring life, and hunting scenes have documentary value for their era and convey the distinctive atmosphere of Victorian exploration literature. As a public-domain ebook, it serves as an accessible sample of early English juvenile adventure fiction and suits readers interested in Arctic subjects and sea stories for casual reading. Note that the work carries clear period limitations; some attitudes and expressions should be viewed in historical context. Readers may wish to focus on the human-nature relationship, the ethics of adventure, and narrative pacing rather than seeking pure plot excitement.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the chapter titles first to grasp the voyage's outline, then read the environmental descriptions chapter by chapter.
  2. Skip over unfamiliar nautical and hunting terms at first to keep the overall reading rhythm.
  3. After finishing, consult a map to locate the polar waters featured in the story.
  4. Read alongside other adventure novels by the same author to observe his narrative formulas.

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

FAQ

Is this book aimed at adult or young readers? The original belongs to the nineteenth-century tradition of adventure fiction for young readers; its language and plot are relatively straightforward, though its content on seafaring, hunting, and survival also appeals to adults. Modern readers can treat it as juvenile literature situated in its historical context.
How difficult is the English, and is it suitable for English learners? The work is nineteenth-century English with long sentences, and some nautical and hunting vocabulary is rather obscure, making it moderately to considerably difficult overall. Readers with some English foundation can read it with notes and a dictionary; it is best to focus on understanding the plot rather than looking up every word.
Are the polar descriptions in the book scientifically grounded? Ballantyne's adventure novels often incorporate the geographical and nautical knowledge of his time, but they remain essentially literary creations, with plot and scenes serving the narrative. Readers may treat them as a window into period perceptions rather than rigorous scientific material.

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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.