Robert Michael Ballantyne

The Norsemen in the West Robert Michael Ballantyne

A tale of adventure and evangelism, Ballantyne transforms into engaging historical fiction the well-known facts of the Icelandic Saga-stories of exploration and adventure, blessed marriage, alternating turmoil and peace with indigenous people-all sprinkled with delightful and humorous stories of day-to-day life surrounding the first European ground breaking in America. The Norsemen in the West carries readers back nearly a thousand years in time, to the days of Leif Ericsson and the early settlements of the seafaring Norsemen. Journey from the shores of Greenland to earliest-recorded America, a plentiful land of lush forests, crystal clear lakes and rivers and abundant fish and game. Robert Michael Ballantyne was part of a famous family of printers and publishers. At the age of 16 he went to Canada and was six years in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. He returned to Scotland in 1847, and published his first book the following year, Hudson's Bay. For some time he was employed by Messrs Constable, the publishers, but in 1856 he gave up business for the profession of literature, and began the series of adventure stories for the young with which his name is popularly associated.