Robert Michael Ballantyne (24 April 1825 - 8 February 1894) was a Scottish author of juvenile fiction who wrote more than 100 books.
He was born in Edinburgh in 1825, the ninth of ten children. A UK banking crisis in 1825 resulted in the collapse of the Ballantyne family printing business the following year with debts of £130,000, which led to a decline in the family's fortunes.
Ballantyne went to Canada aged 16, and spent five years working for the Hudson's Bay Company. He traded with the local Native Americans for furs, which required him to travel by canoe and sleigh.
In 1847 Ballantyne returned to Scotland to discover that his father had died. He published his first book the following year, Hudson's Bay: or, Life in the Wilds of North America. In 1856 he gave up business to focus on his literary career, and began the series of adventure stories for the young with which his name is popularly associated.
The Young Fur-Traders (1856), The Coral Island (1857), The World of Ice (1859), Ungava: a Tale of Eskimo Land (1857), The Dog Crusoe (1860), The Lighthouse (1865), Fighting the Whales (1866), Deep Down (1868), The Pirate City (1874), Erling the Bold (1869), The Settler and the Savage (1877), and more than 100 other books followed.
