The Coral Island by modern scholars and generally considered to be dated in many aspects, in 2006 it was voted one of the top twenty Scottish novels at the 15th International World Wide Web Conference. Robert Louis Stevenson's 1882 novel "Treasure Island" was in part inspired by "The Coral Island", which he admired for its "better qualities", as was J. M. Barrie's character Peter Pan; both Stevenson and Barrie had been "fervent boy readers" of the novel. Novelist G. A. Henty was also influenced by Ballantyne's audience-friendly method of didactism. William Golding's 1954 novel "Lord of the Flies" was written as a counterpoint
A Falcon Flies A Falcon Flies A Falcon Flies is a novel by Wilbur Smith. It was the first in a series of books known as The Ballantyne Novels. The Rhodesian Bush War of the 1970s inspired Smith to research and write a book set in historical Rhodesia. He originally planned it as one novel but it ended up as a trilogy. The book was the best selling novel published in England in 1981. A Falcon Flies is remarkable for its sense of the African wild, grimly informative about the slave trade, and alive with the obsessions and impossible love of its strongminded