never visited the coral islands of the South Pacific, relying instead on the accounts of others that were then beginning to emerge in Britain, which he exaggerated for theatrical effect by including "plenty of gore and violence meant to titillate his juvenile readership". His ignorance of the South Pacific caused him to erroneously describe coconuts as being soft and easily opened; a stickler for accuracy he resolved that in future, whenever possible, he would write only about things he had personal experience of. Ballantyne wrote The Coral Island while staying in a house on the Burntisland seafront opposite Edinburgh on the Firth of Forth in Fife. According to Ballantyne biographer Eric Quayle he borrowed extensively from an 1852 novel by the American author James F. Bowman, The Island Home. He also borrowed from John Williams's Narrative of Missionary Enterprises (1837), to the extent that cultural historian Rod Edmond has suggested that Ballantyne must have written one chapter of The Coral Island with Williams's book open in front of him, so similar is the text. Edmond describes the novel as "a fruit cocktail of other writing about the Pacific", adding that "by modern standards Ballantyne's plagiarism in The Coral Island is startling". Although the first edition is dated 1858 it was on sale in bookshops from early December 1857; dating books forward was a common practice at the time, especially during the Christmas period, to "preserve their newness" into the new year. The Coral Island is Ballantyne's second novel, and has never been out of print. He was an exceedingly prolific author who wrote more than 100 books in his 40-year career. According to professor and author John Rennie Short, Ballantyne had a "deep religious conviction", and felt it his duty to educate Victorian middle-class boys – his target audience – in "codes of honour, decency, and religiosity". The first edition of The Coral Island was published by T. Nelson & Sons, who in common with many other publishers of the time had a policy when accepting a manuscript of buying the copyright from the author rather than paying royalties; as a result, authors generally did not receive any income from the sale of subsequent editions. Ballantyne received between £50 and £60, equivalent to about £6500 , but when the novel's popularity became evident and the number of editions increased he tried unsuccessfully to buy back the copyright. He wrote bitterly