Kidnapped: Original and Unabridged

This is the Original and unabridged text of Kidnapped, a historical fiction adventure novel by Robert Louis Stevenson.

David Balfour is young and naive but resourceful; his parents have recently died, and he is out to make his way in the world. He is sent on an erand to visit his uncle, Ebenezer Balfour

He soon discovers evidence that his father may have been older than his uncle, thus making himself the rightful heir to the estate. David confronts his uncle, who promises to tell David the whole story of his father the next morning. But before that can happen David and his uncle visit a ship in harbour on business, where his uncle arranges that he is kidnapped to be sold in the New World.

Written as a "boys' novel" it has attracted the praise and admiration of writers as diverse as Henry James, Jorge Luis Borges, and Seamus Heaney.

As historical fiction, it is set around 18th-century Scottish events, notably the "Appin Murder," which occurred near Ballachulish in 1752 in the aftermath of the Jacobite Rising. Many of the characters, such as Alan Breck Stewart, were real people. The political situation of the time is portrayed from different viewpoints, and the Scottish Highlanders are treated sympathetically.