Classic
Kidnapped
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Summary
After his miserly uncle has him kidnapped onto a ship bound for the Carolinas, young David Balfour survives a shipwreck and flees across the Scottish Highlands with the dashing Jacobite fugitive Alan Breck Stewart. Stevenson hangs the chase on the real Appin murder of 1752, setting the cautious Lowland boy and the proud Highland fighter against each other in one of fiction's great friendships. The novel doubles as a vivid tour of a Scotland still scarred by the failed Jacobite rising.
”
Historical Context & Significance
Stevenson published the novel in 1886, weaving his plot around a genuine unsolved murder from Scottish history. It stands with Treasure Island as his most loved adventure and a classic of Scottish literature.