Robert Louis Stevenson

Kidnapped Robert Louis Stevenson

Kidnapped is a historical fiction adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, written as a "boys' novel" and first published in the magazine Young Folks from May to July 1886. The novel has attracted the praise and admiration of writers as diverse as Henry James, Jorge Luis Borges, Hilary Mantel, and Seamus Heaney.[citation needed] A sequel, Catriona, was published in 1893. The novel is set around 18th-century Scottish events, notably the "Appin Murder", which occurred near Ballachulish in 1752 in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745. Many of the characters were real people, including one of the principals, Alan Breck Stewart. The political situation of the time is portrayed from different viewpoints, and the Scottish Highlanders are treated sympathetically. The central character and narrator is 17-year-old David Balfour. (Balfour is Stevenson's mother's maiden name.) David is naive but resourceful; his parents have recently died, and he is out to make his way in the world. He is given a letter by the minister of Essendean, Mr. Campbell, to be delivered to the House of Shaws in Cramond, where David's uncle, Ebenezer Balfour, lives. On his journey, David asks many people where the House of Shaws is, and all of them speak of it darkly as a place of fear and evil.