R.M. Ballantyne: adventure stories for Christian youth, The Coral Island and much more!

   R.M. Ballantyne, noted for the adventure novel The Coral Island, was the son of a newspaper editor, was born in Edinburgh and was educated at Edinburgh Academy (1835-37). Bad financial investments caused the family's ruin and Ballantyne's life changed drastically. Between the ages of 16 and 22 he was employed in Canada by the Hudson Bay Company, trading with local Indians. Feeling homesick, Robert Michael Ballantyne started his writing career writing letters to his mother. The Coral Island would not be penned for years to come, but his own life’s adventures began to shape his literary style. Several of his books were based on personal experience.

   In 1847 R.M. Ballantyne returned to Scotland and worked as a clerk at the North British Railway Company in Edinburgh until in1849 to 1855 he worked as a junior partner of Thomas Constable and Company, a printing house. In 1848 Ballantyne wrote Hudson’s Bay, or the Life in the Wilds of North America. This autobiography depicted his youth and adventures in Canada. From 1856 he became a free-lance writer.

   His narrative skill, colorful settings, and resourcefulness of his heroes have not only inspired a generation of writers to take up their pens in defense of biblical manhood, but he changed the lives of thousands of boys for the better with his adventure stories that emphasized Christian character in the face of adversity. Ballantyne was not just another writer of the Victorian age who penned historic fiction like The Coral Island. His strong and uncompromising Christian principles undergird all his stories.

    Annoyed by a mistake he made in The Coral Island, Ballantyne travelled widely to gain first-hand knowledge and to research the backgrounds of his stories. He was especially careful with the details of local flora and fauna, giving believable settings for his dramatic adventures, shipwrecks and other colorful events. During his career Ballantyne wrote over 80 books. In 1866 he married Jane Dickson Grant; they had four sons and two daughters. He died in Rome, Italy, on February 8, 1894.

But in the twentieth century, many publishers declined to carry R.M. Ballantyne because of his strong biblical emphasis. Others hoped to capitalize on the past popularity of his books, but required that Ballantyne’s overt Gospel Christianity be stricken from his storylines.

    In the pages of his masterful adventures, are heroes with godly character, stories of high adventure and of the chivalric code of nobility.

The Ballantyne Christian Adventure Library

   One of Vision Forum’s primary missions is to equip families with tools that will inspire boys and girls toward courageous manhood and noble womanhood. In the annals of nineteenth century Christian adventure literature, nothing fits that bill better than the writings of Robert Michael Ballantyne. He encouraged his readers to put their trust in God for this life and the next, and taught in his stories that the one safeguard against evil is the redemptive love of God.

   Vision Forum has republished the Ballantyne Christian Adventure Library. We at Christian Family Life Books, in cooperation with Vision Forum, are proud to make this library available to you. They have produced each Ballantyne book with quality and care, offering Smythe-sewn hardbound books that will be enjoyed by generations of readers to come. And so with great pleasure, we offer R.M. Ballantyne to your sons and daughters for their safe and ethical reading enjoyment.