The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean
1857
The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean
1857
Fifteen-year-old Ralph Rover has sea in his veins and adventure in his heart. When he convinces his two friends to board the ship Arrow bound for the South Seas, he imagines paradise: palm-fringed islands, pearl-dotted lagoons, and wonders beyond counting. Alongside the steady Jack Martin and the quick-witted Peterkin Gay, Ralph finds exactly what he dreamed of, and far more than he bargained for. A storm dashes their vessel onto a coral reef, and the boys wash ashore on an island of staggering beauty, where fish glow like living jewels and fruit hangs heavy from every branch. For a time, they flourish: building shelters, learning the island's secrets, basking in their freedom from the civilized world. Then the canoe appears on the horizon, carrying cannibals. Then the black sails of a pirate ship. Each threat strips away another layer of innocence, forcing three boys to find reserves of courage they never knew they possessed. Written in 1857, this is the grandfather of the desert island adventure, the raw prototype that would inspire Treasure Island and countless survival tales to follow.
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“and I have always found, though I am unable to account for it, that daylight banishes many of the fears that are apt to assail us in the dark.””
— R. M. Ballantyne
“Cat," said Peterkin, turning his head a little on one side, "I love you.””
— R. M. Ballantyne
“I have since learned, however, that this want of observation is a sad and very common infirmity of human nature, there being hundreds of persons before whose eyes the most wonderful things are passing every day who nevertheless, are totally ignorant of them. I therefore have to record my sympathy with such persons, and to recommend to them a course of conduct which I have now for a long time myself adopted”
— R. M. Ballantyne
“The only place among the southern islands where a ship can put in and get what it wants in comfort is where the Gospel has been sent to. For my part, I don't know and I don't care what the Gospel does to them, but I know that when any o' the islands chance to get it, trade goes smooth and easy.””
— R. M. Ballantyne
“we were a very insufficient crew for such a vessel; and if any one had proposed to us to make such a voyage in it before we had been forced to go through so many hardships from necessity, we would have turned away with pity from the individual making such proposal as from a madman. I pondered this a good deal, and at last concluded that men do not know how much they are capable of doing till they try, and that we should never give way to despair in any undertaking, however difficult it may seem”
— R. M. Ballantyne
“From all these things I came at length to understand that things very opposite and dissimilar in themselves, when united, do make an agreeable whole; as, for example, we three on this our island, although most unlike in many things, when united, made a trio so harmonious that I question if there ever met before such an agreeable triumvirate. There was, indeed, no note of discord whatever in the symphony we played together on that sweet Coral Island; and I am now persuaded that this was owing to our having been all tuned to the same key”
— R. M. Ballantyne
“A feathered arrow without a barb,” said he, “is a good weapon, but a barbed arrow without feathers is utterly useless.””
— R. M. Ballantyne
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Ballantyne, R. M.. The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-coral-island-a-tale-of-the-pacific-ocean-c0a5f0a9-53f1-4762-a122-2aacde2f1ebf.Ballantyne, R. M. (1857). The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-coral-island-a-tale-of-the-pacific-ocean-c0a5f0a9-53f1-4762-a122-2aacde2f1ebfBallantyne, R. M.. The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-coral-island-a-tale-of-the-pacific-ocean-c0a5f0a9-53f1-4762-a122-2aacde2f1ebf.
