Top twenty Scottish novels", WWW2006, archived from the original on 14 March 2012 , retrieved 4 May 2012

Perhaps,” said Peterkin, “some ship or other has touched here long ago for wood, and only taken one tree.” Cape Horn,” said one, “is the most horrible headland I ever doubled. I’ve sailed round it twice already, and both times the ship was a’most blow’d out o’ the water.” O'Sullivan, Emer (2010), Historical Dictionary of Children's Literature, Scarecrow Press, ISBN 978-0-8108-7496-1 Breakfast enough here,” said he, holding up the oysters as we landed and ran up the beach.—“Hallo, Peterkin! Here you are, boy! split open these fellows while Ralph and I put on our clothes. They’ll agree with the cocoa-nuts excellently, I have no doubt.” Finkelstein, David; McCleery, Alistair (2012), An Introduction to Book History, Routledge, ISBN 978-1-136-51591-0

The book falters a little in the final third when the boys come across a Missionary outpost. At this point Ballantyne's prose seems to slip into a sermonising, or eulogising, mode of discourse, that wishes to convince not just the boys, but the readers also, of the merits of the Christian Mission. Until this part of the novel Ballantyne managed to marshal his narrative with expert pacing and a keen eye for wondrous detail, which although weakened in these closing sections, still manages to maintain reader interest.

Potter, Jane (2007), "Children's Books", in Finkelstein, David; McCleery, Alistair (eds.), The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland: Professionalism and Diversity 1880–2000, vol.4, Edinburgh University Press, pp.352–367, ISBN 978-0-7486-1829-3 Korg, Jacob (1976), "Rev. of Brian Street, The Savage in Literature: Representations of 'Primitive' Society in English Fiction, 1858–1920", Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 31 (1): 118–119, doi: 10.2307/2933323, JSTOR 2933323

CHAPTER XXII.

While on our way up we came to an object which filled us with much interest. This was the stump of a tree that had evidently been cut down with an axe! So, then, we were not the first who had viewed this beautiful isle. The hand of man had been at work there before us. It now began to recur to us again that perhaps the island was inhabited, although we had not seen any traces of man until now. But a second glance at the stump convinced us that we had not more reason to think so now than formerly; for the surface of the wood was quite decayed and partly covered with fungus and green matter, so that it must have been cut many years ago. Inflation Calculator, Bank of England, archived from the original on 22 November 2016 , retrieved 29 September 2018 Miller, John William (25 February 2008), "The Coral Island", The Literary Encyclopedia, archived from the original on 20 July 2021 , retrieved 27 June 2013 a b c d e f Singh, Minnie (1997), "The Government of Boys: Golding's Lord of the Flies and Ballantyne's Coral Island", Children's Literature, 25: 205–213, doi: 10.1353/chl.0.0478, S2CID 144319352 We now resumed our journey, resolving that, in our future excursions into the interior, we would be careful to avoid this dangerous precipice.