This was followed by his second romance, the world-famed “Scalp Hunters,” which was written by Mayne Reid in Ireland, at Ballyroney, in the old house in which he was born. On its completion he returned to London, and the book was published in 1851, by Charles Street, in three volumes.
It at once became one of the most popular books of the season, and has maintained its popularity ever since. Over a million copies have been sold in Great Britain alone, and it has been translated into as many languages as “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” The preface to “The Scalp Hunters” is dated June, 1851:
“My book is a trapper book. It is well known that trappers swear like troopers; some of them, in fact, worse. I have endeavoured to christianise my trappers as much as lay in my power. I, however, see a wide distinction between the impiety of a trapper’s oath and the immorality of an unchaste episode.”
There was not an adverse criticism in any of the press notices.
David Bogue, publisher, of Fleet Street, proposed to Mayne Reid to write a series of boys’ books of adventure, the books which earned for him the title of the “Boy’s Novelist.” The first of these was “The Desert Home,” or “English Family Robinson.” It was published by Bogue at Christmas, 1851, in an illustrated cloth edition at 7 shillings 6 pence. The Globe, February 2nd, 1852, says: “Captain Mayne Reid offers to the juvenile community a little book calculated to excite their surprise and to gratify their tastes for the transatlantic, and the wonderful. The dangers and incidents of life in the wilderness are depicted in vivid colours.”
In addition to his literary work Captain Mayne Reid now established a Rifle Club. His military ardour was not quite quenched. The Belvidere Rifle Club was the title.
The preliminary conditions for obtaining recognition by the Crown were stated by the Marquis of Salisbury, Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex, to be that the numbers of a Volunteer Rifle Corps should exceed sixty, and that particulars of the names of the members, and of the mode of training in arms practised, should be supplied.
The Christmas of 1852 saw the production of “The Boy Hunters.” “For the boy readers of England and America this book has been written, and to them it is dedicated; that it may interest them, so as to rival in their affections the top, the ball, and the kite—that it may impress them, so as to create a taste for that most refining study, the study of Nature—that it may benefit them, by begetting a fondness for books, the antidotes of ignorance, of idleness, and vice, has been the design, as it is the sincere wish, of their friend the author.”