Editing R. M. Ballantyne (section)

==Writing career==
In 1847 Ballantyne returned to Scotland to discover that his father had died. He published his first book the following year, ''Hudson's Bay: or, Life in the Wilds of North America'', and for some time was employed by the publishers [[Constable & Robinson|Messrs Constable]]. In 1856, he gave up business to focus on his literary career, and began the series of adventure stories for the young with which his name is popularly associated.{{r|TimesObit}}

''The Young Fur-Traders'' (1856), ''[[The Coral Island]]'' (1857), ''The World of Ice'' (1859), ''Ungava: a Tale of Eskimo Land'' (1857), ''The Dog Crusoe'' (1860), ''The Lighthouse'' (1865), ''Fighting the Whales'' (1866), ''Deep Down'' (1868), ''[[The Pirate City: An Algerine Tale|The Pirate City]]'' (1874), ''Erling the Bold'' (1869), ''The Settler and the Savage'' (1877), and more than 100 other books followed in regular succession, his rule being to write as far as possible from personal knowledge of the scenes he described.{{r|TimesObit}} ''[[The Gorilla Hunters|The Gorilla Hunters. A tale of the wilds of Africa]]'' (1861) shares three characters with ''The Coral Island'': Jack Martin, Ralph Rover and Peterkin Gay. Here Ballantyne relied factually on [[Paul du Chaillu]]'s ''Exploration in Equatorial Guinea'', which had appeared early in the same year.<ref>Jarndyce. The New York Antiquarian Fair, 8–11 March 2018.[https://www.jarndyce.co.uk/online_catalogues/E-LIST%20NEW%20YORK%20BOOK%20FAIR%202018.pdf Retrieved 28 February 2018.]</ref>

''The Coral Island'' is the most popular of the Ballantyne novels still read and remembered today,{{r|Forman}} but because of one mistake he made in that book, in which he gave an incorrect thickness of coconut shells, he subsequently attempted to gain first-hand knowledge of his subject matter. For instance, he spent some time living with the lighthouse keepers at the [[Bell Rock Lighthouse|Bell Rock]] before writing ''The Lighthouse'', and while researching for ''Deep Down'' he spent time with the [[Tin mining|tin miners]] of [[Cornwall]].{{r|TimesObit}}

In 1857–58, Ballantyne wrote several nursery tales under the pseudonym 'Comus', including ''Three Little Kittens'' (1857), ''My Mother'' (1857), ''The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast'' (1857), ''Mister Fox'' (1857),  and ''The Robber Kitten'' (1858).<ref>{{cite book |chapter=Editor's Note |title=Martin Ratler |editor-last=Rhys |editor-first=Ernest |first=R. M. |last=Ballantyne |series=Everyman's Library |publisher=J. M. Dent & Co. |location=London |url=https://dn790001.ca.archive.org/0/items/martinrattler00ball/martinrattler00ball.pdf |via=Internet Archive |page=viii}}</ref> They were printed by [[Thomas Nelson and Sons]] in illustrated editions with verse versions (in the case of ''The Butterfly's Ball'' by [[William Roscoe]] and ''My Mother'' by [[Ann Taylor (poet)|Ann Taylor]]) and musical arrangements for piano and for a duet with a child.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gascoigne |first=Bamber |title=Milestones in Colour Printing 1457–1859: With a Bibliography of Nelson Prints |date=1997 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-55441-1 |location=Cambridge, England |pages=59}}</ref>

In 1866 Ballantyne married Jane Grant ({{circa|1845}} – {{circa|1924|lk=no}}), with whom he had three sons and three daughters.{{r|ODNB}}