Eric Quayle (1921–2001)

The book is written in the pedestrian style of a large number of biographers, especially those who did not actually know the subject person. For me, though, this was well worth buying because R. M. Ballantyne is one of my favourite authors. I now know a bit more about how his life was woven into his stories and how he helped, by those stories, to actually shape the future world through his ardent, youthful, yet-to-grow-up readers. Ballantyne, Kingston, Henty, Strang, etc, were to the youth of their time what television is to ours of this time (20th - 21st Century). From this book, I get that Mr. Ballantyne was a generous, honest and upright citizen which confirms what I get from his books. I would probably have liked him as an acquaintance rather than a friend because the proseletizing would have bugged me after a while, just as it bugs me in his later books. That notwithstanding, I love the books, I have a lot of them in my library collection and this book is a valuable addition to that collection.… (más)