Audiobook · read by volunteers
Madman and The Pirate
R. M. Ballantyne (1825–1894)
Read by Anita Roy Dobbs, Esther, Betsie Bush, Kevin McAsh, Arouet, Lucy Burgoyne (1950-2014) · 16 chapters · 5 h 14
About the book
A madman and a pirate: the title alone promises danger, and R. M. Ballantyne, the Scottish master of the boys’ adventure story, delivers it in sixteen chapters of peril, courage and narrow escapes. Ballantyne spent his youth in the wilds of Canada and wrote with the energy of a man who had seen rough country and rough company. His heroes face hostile forces, test their loyalty and ingenuity, and discover what they are made of. He also believed that adventure should teach something about duty, honesty and faith, and those themes sit comfortably alongside the pace of the story. The action seldom stays still for long, and the next twist is always close behind. Six LibriVox volunteers share the reading, lending the book a lively variety of voices. A good choice for anyone who enjoys old-fashioned tales of danger and daring, or who wants to explore the classic boys’ adventure story at its most energetic.
Introduction
Robert Michael Ballantyne was born in Edinburgh in 1825 and died in 1894. He was a Scottish writer of juvenile fiction, and he came from a famous family of printers and publishers. At the age of sixteen he went to Canada, where he spent six years in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company, an experience that fed into his first books and gave his later writing its confident feeling for wild places.
The Madman and the Pirate was published in 1883. Like many of Ballantyne’s adventures, it was meant for young readers and combines excitement with a firm moral outlook. His best-known novel, The Coral Island, appeared in 1857 and remains his most lasting work, but he wrote dozens of others, often basing his settings on research and on first-hand knowledge.
Adventure stories of this period reflect the outlook of the British Empire, and Ballantyne’s books contain ideas about race, religion and the role of Europeans overseas that most readers today will find outdated. At the same time, the narrative skill is considerable, and the pace of the story, with its chain of dangers and escapes, is still engaging.
This LibriVox recording has sixteen chapters and lasts a little over five hours. It is shared by six volunteer readers, so the story passes from voice to voice. It will be enjoyed by those who like classic boys’ adventure, tales of the sea, or the history of children’s literature.
Public domain
R. M. Ballantyne died in 1894: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text