12 h 27 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Among ships, pirates, and remote islands, a volcano holds a power no human courage can command.
In Blown to Bits; Or, the Lonely Man of Rakata, R. M. Ballantyne takes you into the Malay Archipelago, where sea travel brings both adventure and danger. Ships and island life fill this story, while pirates add a human threat alongside the force of nature. At its heart stands Rakata, better known as Krakatoa, the island torn apart by the great eruption of 1883.
A lonely figure on a remote island brings another kind of tension: the distance between living apart and finding friendship. Ballantyne sets courage, honesty, and kindness against cruelty and greed. His Victorian outlook shapes the journey, offering a glimpse of how readers of his time picture the tropics, face danger, and understand the power of nature.
What you’ll discover
- A volcano at the heart Enter an island setting where the threat of eruption gives nature a commanding presence.
- Danger on the sea road Follow the pull of ships and sea travel through waters where pirates threaten.
- The lonely island figure Explore the questions raised by a person living apart on a remote island.
- Friendship under pressure Discover how friendship and kindness matter in a world shaped by danger and loneliness.
- A Victorian moral compass Meet an outlook that values courage and honesty while showing the harm of greed.
Who will love it
Readers who love sea voyages, jungle adventures, comic friendships and real history told as a story. Fans of Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson, and anyone curious about Krakatoa, will feel at home here.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A storm drives the brig to the Keelings
- An orphan girl with a pencil
- A holiday and an odd invitation
- The cave under the volcano
- An eruption and an unexpected meeting
- A canoe, a gale and a hated name
- Borneo, a professor and a great ape
- Sumatra, tigers and a flight from vengeance
- What the story is really about
Who’s who
- Nigel RoyA good-humored young Englishman and amateur first mate, he loves poetry and nature and sets out to see the Malay Archipelago.
- Captain David RoyNigel's gruff, kind father, skipper and owner of the brig Sunshine, who values duty first and openly praises his wife's poetry.
- Van der KempThe hermit of Rakata, a tall, gentle, learned man who lives in a cave beneath the volcano and carries an old sorrow.
- MosesThe hermit's loyal African servant and friend, a strong, talkative man who loves fishing, food and long speeches.
- Professor VerkimierA huge, cheerful naturalist in blue spectacles who lives for butterflies and specimens and tumbles into trouble to get them.
- Kathy HolbeinA talented young artist on the Cocos-Keeling Islands, adopted as a small child after a pirate attack, who remembers her father.
- SpinkieThe hermit's small monkey, who guards the canoe, steals biscuits and loves his master with all his heart.
- BaderoonA one-eyed Malay pirate chief who hates the hermit for foiling his plans and hunts him through the islands.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 12 h 27 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 7 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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In Stücke gesprengt; oder: Der einsame Mann von Rakata
by R. M. Ballantyne · 1889
Nigel paddles past a waking volcano with a silent hermit, a loyal servant and a monkey.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Imagine a quiet night at sea, ash on a captain's sleeve, and a volcano about to wake. Blown to Bits is an adventure novel by R. M. Ballantyne, set in 1883 in the Malay Archipelago.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A storm drives the brig to the Keelings
The book opens on a dark night in 1883 aboard the brig Sunshine, becalmed in the Indian Ocean. Captain David Roy, short, gruff and warm-hearted, walks the deck with his son Nigel and teases him about the poetry he learned from his mother.
Then the captain notices a thin dusting of ash on his sleeve. He guesses a volcano is stirring and orders every sail taken in. The captain refuses to call it bad luck until it proves itself so.
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What is Blown to Bits about?
It follows Nigel Roy, a young English sailor, who joins a mysterious hermit living under Krakatoa. Together they travel by canoe through Borneo and Sumatra, meeting pirates, tigers and a naturalist, while the volcano they left behind slowly wakes.
Is Blown to Bits based on a true story?
The story mixes fiction with the real eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. Ballantyne quotes reports from scientific studies of the eruption, and he describes the waves, the sounds heard thousands of miles away and the strange skies that followed.
Who is the hermit of Rakata?
He is Van der Kemp, a tall, gentle man born in Java to a Dutch father and an Irish mother. He lives in a cave on Rakata peak, studies science and nature, and carries a deep sorrow that he rarely mentions.
The author
R. M. Ballantyne
1825–1894 · Scottish children's adventure novelist
R. M. Ballantyne (1825–1894) was a Scottish writer of fiction for young readers. He was born in Edinburgh and worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada from 1841 to 1847. He wrote The Coral Island (1857) and Blown to Bits (1889). He died in Rome.
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