The Coral Island (Puffin Classics)

Product Information

Pooh! is that all?” exclaimed Peterkin, wiping the perspiration off his forehead. “Why, I thought it was all the wild men and beasts in the South Sea Islands, galloping on in one grand charge to sweep us off the face of the earth, instead of a mere stone tumbling down the mountain-side!” While Peterkin ran on in this style my faculties became quite clear again, and I began to understand my position. “What do you mean by saying I half-choked you, Peterkin?” said I. Breakfast enough here,” said he, holding up the oysters as we landed and ran up the beach.—“Hallo, Peterkin! Here you are, boy! split open these fellows while Ralph and I put on our clothes. They’ll agree with the cocoa-nuts excellently, I have no doubt.” O'Sullivan, Emer (2010), Historical Dictionary of Children's Literature, Scarecrow Press, ISBN 978-0-8108-7496-1

I read this book as a child lots of times and really loved it. I read it again when I bought it during 2014 and finished it some time later that year, I cannot remember it well enough now to write a worthwhile review except to remember the magic in the story that lifted me and transported me into another world.A feathered arrow without a barb,” said he, “is a good weapon, but a barbed arrow without feathers is utterly useless.” Meat and drink on the same tree!” cried Peterkin; “washing in the sea, lodging on the ground—and all for nothing! My dear boys, we’re set up for life! It must be the ancient Paradise—hurrah!” and Peterkin tossed his straw hat in the air and ran along the beach, hallooing like a madman with delight. Korg, Jacob (1976), "Rev. of Brian Street, The Savage in Literature: Representations of 'Primitive' Society in English Fiction, 1858–1920", Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 31 (1): 118–119, doi: 10.2307/2933323, JSTOR 2933323

Kundu, Rama (2006), New Perspectives on British Authors: From William Shakespeare to Graham Greene, Sarup & Sons, ISBN 978-81-7625-690-2 Reiff, Raychel Haugrud (2010), William Golding: Lord of the Flies, Marshall Cavendish, ISBN 978-0-7614-4700-9 I smiled at this question, and answered that, as our watches were at the bottom of the sea, I could not tell, but it was a little past sunrise.

Cleanliness: cannibalism and human sacrifice are talked about and described often and with enough detail to know what is going on, i.e. people are batted on the head, cut into pieces and roasted. Mentions babies being thrown into a fire for sacrifice to a god. We listened for a long time for the sound again; but as it did not come, we returned to the bower and resumed our work. Never,” I replied. “It appears to me like fairy realms. I can scarcely believe that we are not dreaming.” The Coral Island was a fantastic book that I absolutely loved. I recommend it to those who enjoy adventure and historical fiction.

An’ I’ve been round it five times,” cried a third; “an’ every time wos wuss than another, the gales wos so tree-mendous!” Much better; but we have no ropes to bind it together with. Perhaps we may find something hereafter that will do as well, but in the meantime let us try the tree.” Ah! that’s just the way with me,” said Peterkin with a deep sigh. “I never could keep in my mind for half-an-hour the few descriptions I ever attempted to remember. The very first voyage I ever made was caused by my mistaking a description—or forgetting it, which is the same thing. And a horrible voyage it was. I had to fight with the captain the whole way out, and made the homeward voyage by swimming!” For a hundred years, 'The Coral Island' was a popular adventure story among kids. Then in 1954, William Golding took the core story from this book and put those teenagers in an island, but instead of them having adventures, he made the story dark and bleak and made them do bad things. He called his book 'Lord of the Flies'. Golding's book became big, it got into recommended reading lists in schools and colleges, and it won Golding the Nobel Prize. 'The Coral Island' and its author R.M.Ballantyne slowly faded into the mists of time. Today, except for this book, all of Ballantyne's books are out-of-print. However, many of them are available as digital copies in Gutenberg. For some years I was happy in visiting the seaports, and in coasting along the shores, of my native land. My Christian name was Ralph; and my comrades added to this the name of Rover, in consequence of the passion which I always evinced for travelling. Rover was not my real name; but as I never received any other, I came at last to answer to it as naturally as to my proper name. And as it is not a bad one, I see no good reason why I should not introduce myself to the reader as Ralph Rover. My shipmates were kind, good-natured fellows, and they and I got on very well together. They did, indeed, very frequently make game of and banter me, but not unkindly; and I overheard them sometimes saying that Ralph Rover was a “queer, old-fashioned fellow.” This, I must confess, surprised me much; and I pondered the saying long, but could come at no satisfactory conclusion as to that wherein my old-fashionedness lay. It is true I was a quiet lad, and seldom spoke except when spoken to. Moreover, I never could understand the jokes of my companions even when they were explained to me, which dulness in apprehension occasioned me much grief. However, I tried to make up for it by smiling and looking pleased when I observed that they were laughing at some witticism which I had failed to detect. I was also very fond of inquiring into the nature of things and their causes, and often fell into fits of abstraction while thus engaged in my mind. But in all this I saw nothing that did not seem to be exceedingly natural, and could by no means understand why my comrades should call me “an old-fashioned fellow.”I had often heard it said that Lord of the Flies was a kind of realistic retelling of the story of The Coral Island, but it was only on re-reading the latter that I realised that the two main characters had the same names. And I also realised how much I had forgotten of the story. Virtually the only thing I recalled was my mental picture of the island on which they landed, and I had a vague recollection that the boys in The Coral Island were a bit older. A typical Robinsonade – a genre of fiction inspired by Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe– and one of the most popular of its type, the book first went on sale in late 1857 and has never been out of print. Among the novel's major themes are the civilising effect of Christianity, 19th-century imperialism in the South Pacific, and the importance of hierarchy and leadership. It was the inspiration for William Golding's dystopian novel Lord of the Flies (1954), which inverted the morality of The Coral Island; in Ballantyne's story the children encounter evil, but in Lord of the Flies evil is within them.