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Kidnapped: The Adventures of David Balfour

Robert Louis Stevenson

Published1886
Pages288
Open Library3.7 / 5
Club average—

Excerpt

KIDNAPPED is an adventure story that has become the model for any thriller of escape and suspense. Set in 1751, the flight of David Balfour and Alan Breck across the Highlands of Scotland is based on real events. Though he wrote the book to make money, while living as an invalid in Bournemouth. Stevenson was proud of it; he inscribed a presentation copy with the couplet. Here is the one sound page of all my writing. The one I'm proud of and that I delight in. Rowland Hilder is famous for his paintings of the English countryside but his work in book illustration covered a much wider canvas. His drawing for KIDNAPPED were first published in 1930 and have undeservedly, been long out of print. A sixteen-year-old orphan is kidnapped by his villainous uncle, but later escapes and becomes involved in the struggle of the Scottish highlanders against English rule.

Literary origin

Country whose literature this title belongs to, based on author tradition —not necessarily where the story is set.

  • United Kingdom

Topics from Open Library

Subjects

  • Juvenile fiction
  • Fiction
  • History
  • Adventure and adventurers
  • Scotland
  • Adventure
  • Adventure fiction
  • Historical fiction
  • Teenage boys
  • Kidnapping

Times & places

  • 1751
  • 18th century
  • 19th century
Added to BBRC

Oct 6, 2026

Catalog slug

kidnapped_the_adventures_of_david_balfour

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