Kidnapped

First published in 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped follows young David Balfour, whose life is overturned when his uncle arranges for him to be abducted and sent to sea. After surviving a shipwreck and escaping the designs of his captors, David finds himself entangled in the political and religious divisions of eighteenth-century Scotland. His uneasy alliance with Alan Breck Stewart, a daring Jacobite fugitive, leads him through the Highlands in a journey marked by pursuit, danger and unexpected friendship.

Set in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745, the novel combines the momentum of an adventure story with a vivid portrait of a country divided by loyalties, class and competing visions of its future. David and Alan’s contrasting temperaments—one cautious and principled, the other flamboyant and fiercely independent—give the narrative much of its wit and moral tension. Stevenson’s command of landscape, dialect and suspense makes Kidnapped one of his finest historical romances, while its exploration of justice, belonging and political allegiance gives the adventure a distinctly Scottish depth. Both an exhilarating tale of escape and a nuanced account of national identity, it helped shape the modern historical adventure novel.

From the book

“I was now alone in the world, and I had to look out for myself.”

— Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped

On Kidnapped

“Kidnapped transforms the Romantic historical novel into the modern thriller.”

— Ian Duncan, University of California, Berkeley