The Island Queen

Robert Michael BallantyneProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.4

Word count: 320K words
Chapters: 32

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 Island Queen by R. M. BallantyneAuthor: Ballantyne, R. M. (Robert Michael), 1825-1894,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Jun 7, 2007

Editor's review

The Island Queen is a boys' adventure novel by R. M. Ballantyne, built around shipwreck and survival on an island. Ballantyne had worked overseas in his youth and excelled at depicting desert islands, seafaring and pioneer life; this book follows his usual method: plot driven by sudden events, characters shaped by clear contrasts of good and evil, and an emphasis on courage, mutual aid and self-reliance. Readers familiar with the Coral Island mode of storytelling will find here a lighter reading experience in the same vein. It does not aim at deep social allegory but presents, within an adventure frame, how boys respond to and grow in an unfamiliar environment. As a public-domain ebook it suits extensive reading in English and serves as further reading for those interested in nineteenth-century adventure fiction. While reading, note the details of island survival and the division of labor among the characters, and observe how old-fashioned boys' fiction organizes narrative through external crisis.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy desert-island survival and seafaring adventure
Those interested in nineteenth-century English boys' adventure novels
Self-learners seeking intermediate-level English extensive reading material
Genre readers who want to understand Ballantyne's body of work

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting modern psychological depth and complex narrative structure
Learners with weak English who struggle with nineteenth-century prose
Readers sensitive to colonial-era narrative frameworks

Reading tips

Begin by skimming the contents and chapter titles to grasp the stages of island survival.
As you read, note the division of labor among characters and key events to keep the narrative threads clear.
Look up nautical and survival terms in batches rather than pausing on every page.
After reading, compare with other desert-island novels to see where the narrative emphasis differs.

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.

FAQ

Can I read this without having read other Ballantyne works?

Yes. It is a standalone story and does not depend on earlier books. Ballantyne's works do share a similar adventure framework and character temperament, so having read other of his boys' adventure novels makes his narrative conventions easier to recognize; reading this directly poses no obstacle to understanding.

How difficult is the English?

Moderately advanced. The original is nineteenth-century English with long sentences and vocabulary from seafaring and island survival, but the plot is clear enough to help readers move forward using context. It suits readers with intermediate ability who are willing to meet some unfamiliar words.

Is this suitable for classroom use?

It can serve as supplementary material for extensive reading or a genre-fiction elective, but is not recommended as a main intensive-reading textbook. The book lacks modern annotations, so teachers must supply background and vocabulary notes themselves and should guide students in examining its period narrative framework.

Comments

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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.