Kidnapped (novel)

Kidnapped

First American edition, New York: Scribner's Sons, 1886
Author	Robert Louis Stevenson
Language	Victorian era Scottish English, Lowland Scots, Highland English
Genre	Adventure novel Historical novel
Publisher	Cassell and Company Ltd
Publication date	1886
Publication place	Scotland
Pages	136
OCLC	43167976
Dewey Decimal	823/.8 21
LC Class	PR5484 .K5 2000
Followed by	Catriona (1893)

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, and Hilary Mantel.^[1] A sequel, Catriona, was published in 1893.

The narrative is written in English with some dialogue in Lowland Scots, a Germanic language that evolved from an earlier incarnation of English.

Kidnapped is set around real 18th-century Scottish events, notably the "Appin Murder" and the Highland Clearances, which occurred in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745. Many of the characters are real people, including one of the principals, Alan Breck Stewart. The political situation of the time is portrayed from multiple viewpoints, and the Scottish Highlanders are treated sympathetically.

The full title of the book is Kidnapped: Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: How he was Kidnapped and Cast away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; His Journey in the Wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called: Written by Himself and now set forth by Robert Louis Stevenson.