Up in the Clouds, by R.M. Ballantyne, 1869

The artifact

A first-edition history of ballooning, 1869.

The stories behind the artifact

Robert Michael Ballantyne (1825—1894) was a Scottish author of mainly fiction and adventure books for boys (and girls) who wrote over 90 adventure novels, often inspired by his six years with the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada. His works, such as The Young Fur Traders, Ungava, and the influential The Coral Island, blended vivid landscapes with moral and Christian themes. Ballantyne meticulously researched his settings, popularising Victorian boys’ adventure literature and influencing writers like Robert Louis Stevenson.

On the 24th April 1825, R.M. Ballantyne was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, to Anne Randall Scott Grant and Alexander Ballantyne, a newspaper editor. Between 1835 and 1837 he was educated at Edinburgh Academy, considered the best school in the city at that time. In 1841 the young man was employed as a clerk for the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada. In his later autobiographical work, Personal Reminiscences in Book-Making, Ballantyne described his life there:

‘My comrades and I spent the greater part of our time in fur-trading with the Red Indians; doing a little office-work, and in much canoeing, boating, fishing, shooting, wishing, and skylarking. It was a “jolly” life, no doubt, while it lasted, but not elevating!’

‘With a winter of eight months’ duration and temperature sometimes at 50 below zero of Fahrenheit, little to do and nothing particular to think of, time occasionally hung heavy on our hands. With a view to lighten it a little, I began to write long and elaborate letters to a loving mother whom I had left behind me in Scotland… To this long-letter writing I attribute whatever small amount of facility in composition I may have acquired. Yet not the faintest idea of story-writing crossed the clear sky of my unliterary imagination.’

He later credited his writing ability to the long letters he wrote his mother while overseas.

After six years in Canada, he returned to Scotland, where in 1847 he spent two years employed as a clerk for the North British Railway Company, again in Edinburgh. At the suggestion of a family friend, Ballantyne published the letters he wrote home, in a book entitled Hudson’s Bay (1847). He also gave lectures in Edinburgh about his time in Canada, enlivening the talks by dressing up as a backwoodsman, telling dramatic stories, and showcasing a collection of Canadian souvenirs. 1849 was a pivotal year: after the death of his sister he became fervently religious and was elected an elder of the Free Church of Scotland; he also became a junior partner at the printing-house Thomas Constable and Company.

The full account — Ballantyne’s career and the remarkable history of the Constable publishing house and the Edinburgh Review — continues in the PDF below.