BALLANTYNE, R[obert]. M[ichael].

The Coral Island

London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1858 [1857]. First Edition, Second Issue. Octavo. 18.5cm. Publisher's second issue green lavishly embossed cloth titled and decorated in gilt to spine and front board. 438pp. Recased (or repacked) in original binding, light scuffing and rubbing to extremities, minor bumping to spine ends, bright and handsome; internally clean, yellow coated endpapers and contemporary ownership to front flyleaf, contiguous frontispiece and decorative vignette title page. "Terrible Encounter with a Shark" plate facing page 76. making it a mixed issue of some sort, there are traces of offsetting to the pages facing the attractive chromolithographed plates, making it clear they have been in situ for the life of the book, although this raises some questions - in other second issue copies the shark plate was tipped in as the frontispiece, which is not a possibility here. A very good, strong, attractive copy in pretty bottle green cloth, with some peculiar qualities.

Although dated 1858 on the title page, the book was published in the last couple of months of 1857, and was on sale as a Christmas book. It bears the distinctioon of never having been out of print since its initial appearance. It is ranked as one of the early novels in the great revolution of boys fiction that began at the time, and like Kipling's "Kim" five decades later, is considered an almost perfect novel of its time. Ballantyne, although widely traveled, never made it to the South Seas, and his knowledge is almost entirely lifted from other sources including "Narrative of Missionary Enterprises" [1837], Bowman's "The Island Home", and a slew of other inspirations including Darwin on Coral Reefs. Published a year in advance of "On The Origin of Species" there is a decidedly 'survival of the fittest' flavor to the novel, dealing as it does with the survival of three shipwrecked boys on a jungle atoll, and its later influence upon Golding's "The Lord of The Flies" is abundantly clear. A scarce novel now in early printings, and an important keystone piece of juvenile literature and its effects upon the Victorian Imperial world view.

Price: $1,750.00

Go Back