The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean
- London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1858
London: T. Nelson and Sons, 1858. First edition. Good. First issue, with the plate “Terrible Encounter with a Shark” facing p. 76 (in the second issue, it was tipped in as the frontispiece). Octavo (7 x 4 5/8 inches; 177 x 117 mm.). viii, [9]-438, [2, blank] pp. Color-printed frontispiece, color-printed pictorial title, and six color-printed plates after drawings by the author. Plate facing p. 214 with original tissue-guard. Publisher’s first issue binding of royal blue diagonal ripple-grain cloth with covers decoratively stamped in blind and front cover and spine pictorially stamped and lettered in gilt. Original pale yellow coated endpapers. Bindiing somewhat worn and the gilt dulled. The spine has been expertly repaired with a small piece missing from the center left and some loss of cloth at head and tail. Corners a little worn, inner hinges expertly restored. Neat ink presentation (December 25th 1859) on front pastedown. Small ink stain on fore-edge affecting pp. 297 to end. Page 387/388 has the top blank margin torn away, not affecting any text but just touching the page number on verso. A Good copy of this extremely scarce nineteenth-century children’s book. Only a handful of copies of the first issue in the original cloth have sold at auction in the past fifty years.
This copy comes from the library of Edgar Osborne (d. 2008), a very well-known collector of English literature. It was exhibited at the Festival of Britain Exhibition of Books 1951 which was arranged by the National Book League at the Victoria & Albert Museum as exhibit no. 68. The original exhibition slip is loosely inserted. Together with a copy (ex library) of the original 1951 Festival of Britain Exhibition of Books catalog listing this copy on p. 33 (item no. 68) listing the lender as the renowned librarian and founder of one of the premier collections of children's fiction, Edgar Osborne.
“Most of the incidents used in the plot of The Coral Island, the author’s most famous book, Ballantyne culled from an obscure work entitled The Island Home; or, The Young Cast-Aways by James F. Bowman, who wrote under the pseudonym of Christopher Romaunt. The Island Home was published in Boston in 1851, and by Nelson’s of Edinburgh in 1852, and Ballantyne took a copy with him to Burntisland, near Edinburgh, where he spent a fortnight’s holiday during the summer of 1857...The writer’s other main source of information was Recent Exploring Expeditions to the Pacific, and the South Seas by J.S. Jenkins, published by Nelsons in 1853” (Quayle).
Robert Michael Ballantyne (1825 - 1894) was a Scottish author of juvenile fiction who wrote more than one hundred books. He was also an accomplished artist, and exhibited some of his watercolors at the Royal Scottish Academy. The Coral Island (1858) is the most popular of the Ballantyne novels still read and remembered today, and because of one mistake he made in that book, in which he gave an incorrect thickness of coconut shells, he subsequently attempted to gain firsthand knowledge of his subject matter. For instance, he spent some time living with the lighthouse keepers at the Bell Rock before writing The Lighthouse, and while researching for Deep Down he spent time with the tin miners of Cornwall.
Edgar Osborne (1890 - 1978) was a distinguished librarian, an able administrator, scholar and collector, who founded one of the premier collections of children's fiction, the Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books.
The Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books 1566-1910, volume I, p. 322; Quayle, R.M. Ballantyne. A Bibliography of First Editions. 12a; Sadleir 103. Good.
This copy comes from the library of Edgar Osborne (d. 2008), a very well-known collector of English literature. It was exhibited at the Festival of Britain Exhibition of Books 1951 which was arranged by the National Book League at the Victoria & Albert Museum as exhibit no. 68. The original exhibition slip is loosely inserted. Together with a copy (ex library) of the original 1951 Festival of Britain Exhibition of Books catalog listing this copy on p. 33 (item no. 68) listing the lender as the renowned librarian and founder of one of the premier collections of children's fiction, Edgar Osborne.
“Most of the incidents used in the plot of The Coral Island, the author’s most famous book, Ballantyne culled from an obscure work entitled The Island Home; or, The Young Cast-Aways by James F. Bowman, who wrote under the pseudonym of Christopher Romaunt. The Island Home was published in Boston in 1851, and by Nelson’s of Edinburgh in 1852, and Ballantyne took a copy with him to Burntisland, near Edinburgh, where he spent a fortnight’s holiday during the summer of 1857...The writer’s other main source of information was Recent Exploring Expeditions to the Pacific, and the South Seas by J.S. Jenkins, published by Nelsons in 1853” (Quayle).
Robert Michael Ballantyne (1825 - 1894) was a Scottish author of juvenile fiction who wrote more than one hundred books. He was also an accomplished artist, and exhibited some of his watercolors at the Royal Scottish Academy. The Coral Island (1858) is the most popular of the Ballantyne novels still read and remembered today, and because of one mistake he made in that book, in which he gave an incorrect thickness of coconut shells, he subsequently attempted to gain firsthand knowledge of his subject matter. For instance, he spent some time living with the lighthouse keepers at the Bell Rock before writing The Lighthouse, and while researching for Deep Down he spent time with the tin miners of Cornwall.
Edgar Osborne (1890 - 1978) was a distinguished librarian, an able administrator, scholar and collector, who founded one of the premier collections of children's fiction, the Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books.
The Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books 1566-1910, volume I, p. 322; Quayle, R.M. Ballantyne. A Bibliography of First Editions. 12a; Sadleir 103. Good.