Home / Browse / Fine Bindings / The Coral Island:
BALLANTYNE, Robert Michael.
The Coral Island:
A Tale of the Pacific Ocean ... With Illustrations by the Author.
Publisher: London, Edinburgh & New York, T. Nelson and Sons, 1866
Stock code: 73785
Price: £150 Currency Conversion
First published in 1858. Ballantyne wrote children's stories based on his experiences in Canada as a young man in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, achieving his greatest literary success with his second book, The Coral Island, and long influencing other writers: William Golding's Lord of the Flies is a modern riposte to Ballantyne's Victorian castaway idyll. As the plates here show, Ballantyne was also an accomplished draughtsman, who exhibited a number of water-colours at the Royal Scottish Academy.
Octavo (174 × 115 mm). Contemporary dark brown pebble-grained morocco, titles and decoration to spine, gilt panelled design to boards, cream endpapers, gilt edges. Frontispiece, additional title-page and 6 plates all printed in colour. Some browning and light foxing to pages, skilful repair to joints, an excellent copy.
