Robert Michael Ballantyne, The Coral Island

John Miller (University of Sheffield)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.07: English Writing and Culture of the Victorian Period, 1837-1901.
Vol. editors: Gillian Fenwick (University of Toronto), Jessica Gossling (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1858

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Recommended Reading

The Coral Island

(1858) was the second novel of the popular Scottish children’s writer R. M. Ballantyne and his most enduring literary legacy, frequently considered to be a classic of its kind. Based on the exotic shipwreck scenario most familiar from Daniel Defoe’s

Robinson Crusoe

The Coral Island

also draws on a number of more obscure sources, notably accounts of missionary travels in the Pacific and a now almost entirely forgotten 1853 novel

The Island Home; or, The Young Castaways

by the American James F. Bowman. Ballantyne’s tale is a blend of rollicking adventure and sanctimonious reflections on the virtues of Empire that comes with the characteristic racial prejudices and stereotypes of Victorian boys’ fiction and an irrepressible idealism that would later be parodied in…

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2442 words

Citation: Miller, John . "The Coral Island". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 February 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21018, accessed 26 April 2024.]

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