Martin Rattler
Ballantyne, Robert Michael 1825-1894
English
We will print you a perfectly bound paperback of your selected title and send it to you at your nominated address
Below is a summary of Martin Rattler
Proofreading Team.
MARTIN RATTLER
BY R M BALLANTYNE
1858
EDITOR'S NOTE
"MARTIN RATTLER" was one of, Robert Michael Ballantyne's early books.
Born at Edinburgh in 1825,[1] he was sent to Rupert's Land as a
trading-clerk in the Hudson Bay Fur Company's service when he left
school, a boy of sixteen. There, to relieve his home-sickness, he first
practised his pen in long letters home to his mother. Soon after his
return to Scotland in 1848 he published a first book on Hudson's Bay.
Then he passed some years in a Scottish publisher's office; and in 1855 a
chance suggestion from another publisher led to his writing his first
book for boys--"Snowflakes and Sunbeams, or The Young Fur Traders." That
story showed he had found his vocation, and he poured forth its
successors to the tune in all of some fourscore volumes. "Martin Rattler"
appeared in 1858. In his "Personal Reminiscences" Ballantyne wrote: "How
many thousands of lads have an intense liking for the idea of a sailor's
life!" and he pointed out there the other side of the romantic picture:
the long watches "in dirty unromantic weather," and the hard work of
holystoning the decks, scraping down the masts and cleaning out the
coal-hole. But though his books show something of this reverse side too,
there is no doubt they have helped to set many boys dreaming of
"Wrecks, buccaneers, black flags, and desert lands
On which, alone, the second Crusoe stands."
[Footnote 1: See Note to "The Coral Island" in this series.]
Among these persuasions to the life of adventure "Martin Rattler" is
still one of the favourite among all his books. Ballantyne himself was
fated to die on foreign soil in 1894, at Rome, where he lies buried in
the English Protestant cemetery.
The following is a list of Ballantyne's chief romances, tales of
adventure, and descriptive works:--
"Hudson's Bay, or Every-day Life in the Wilds of North America," etc.,
1848; "Snowflakes and Sunbeams, or the Young Fur Traders," 1856. In 1857
and 1858 appeared, under the pseudonym of "Comus": "The Butterfly's Ball
and the Grasshopper's Feast" (in verse by Roscoe), ed. with music,
coloured illustrations, and a prose version; "Mister Fox"; "My Mother";
"The Robber Kitten" (by the author of "Three Little Kittens"). "The Coral
Island, a Tale of the Pacific Ocean" (with a preface subscribed "Ralph
Rover"), 1858 (1857); "Ungava, a Tale of Esquimaux Land," 1858 (1857);
"Martin Rattler, or a Boy's Adventures in the Forests of Brazil," 1858;
"Ships, the _Great Eastern_ and lesser Craft" (with illustrations), 1859;
"Mee-a-ow! or Good Advice to Cats and Kittens," 1859; "The World of Ice,
or Adventures in the Polar Regions," 1860 (1859); "The Dog Crusoe, a Tale
of the Western Prairies," 1861 (1860); "The Golden Dream, or Adventures
in the Far West," 1861 (1860); "The Gorilla Hunters, a Tale of the Wilds
of Africa," 1861; "The Red Eric, or the Whaler's Last Cruise," 1861; "Man
on the Ocean, a Book for Boys," 1863 (1862); "The Wild Man of the West, a
Tale of the Rocky Mountains," 1863 (1862); "Gascoyne, the Sandal-wood
Trader, a Tale of the Pacific," 1864 (1863); "The Lifeboat, a Tale of our
Coast Heroes," 1864; "Freaks on the Fells, or Three Months' Rustication,"
and "Why I did not become a Sailor," etc., 1865 (1861); "The Lighthouse,
being the Story of a Great Fight between Man and the Sea," etc., 1865;
"Shifting Winds, a Tough Yarn," etc., 1866; "Silver Lake, or Lost in the
Snow," 1867; "A Rescue in the Rocky Mountains," 1867; "Fighting the
Flames, a Tale of the London Fire Brigade," 1868; "Away in the
Wilderness, or Life among the Red Indians and Fur Traders of North
America," 1869; "Erling the Bold, a Tale of the Norse Sea-kings," with
illustrations by the author, 1869; "Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish
Mines," 1869; "The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands," with
illustrations by the author, 1870; "The Iron Horse, or Life on the Line,
a Tale of the Grand National Trunk Railway," 1871; "The Norsemen in the
West, or America before Columbus," 1872; "The Pioneers, a Tale of the
Western Wilderness, illustrative of the Adventures and Discoveries
of Sir A. Mackenzie," 1872; "Black Ivory, a Tale of Adventure among
the Slaves of East Africa," 1873; "Life in the Red Brigade, a Story
for Boys," 1873; "The Ocean and its Wonders," 1874; "The Pirate
City, an Algerine Tale," 1875; "Under the Waves, or Diving in Deep
Waters," 1876; "Rivers of Ice, a Tale illustrative of Alpine
Adventure and Glacier Action," 1876; "The Settler and the Savage, a
Tale of Peace and War in South Africa," 1877; "Jarwin and Cuffy"
(Incident and Adventure Library), 1878; "In the Track of the
Troops, a Tale of Modern War," 1878; "Six Months at the Cape, or
Letters to Periwinkle from South Africa," 1879 (1878); "Post
Haste, a Tale of Her Majesty's Mails," 1880 (1879); "The Red Man's
Revenge, a Tale of the Red River Flood," 1880; "Philosopher Jack, a
Tale of the Southern Seas," 1880; "The Lonely Island, or the Refuge
of the Mutineers," 1880; "The Robber Kitten" (in volume of tales by
two or three authors), 1880; "The Collected Works of Ensign Sopht,
late of the Volunteers, illustrated by himself," 1881; "My Doggie
Back