Robert Louis Stevenson's classic, swashbuckling novel about a young boy who is forced to go to sea and who is then caught up in high drama, daring adventure and political intrigue. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is introduced by Louise Welsh and features black and white illustrations.Headstrong David Balfour, orphaned at seventeen, sets out from the Scottish Lowlands to seek his fortune in Edinburgh. Betrayed by his wealthy Uncle Ebenezer, he is carried away to sea to be sold into slavery in the Carolinas. On board, he secures a timely alliance with Jacobite adventurer Alan Breck, and together they make an epic escape across the western Highlands. Inspired by real events, Kidnapped is a swashbuckling adventure of bizarre encounters, political assassination and wild carousings with Robert Louis Stevenson’s unique counterpoint of low morals and high comedy threaded throughout.

Stevenson’s ability to create other worlds is at the heart of his writing

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850, the only son of the engineer Thomas Stevenson. Despite a lifetime of poor health, Stevenson was a keen traveller, and his first book An Inland Voyage (1878) recounted a canoe tour of France and Belgium. In 1880 he married an American, Fanny Osbourne, and there followed Stevenson’s most productive period, in which he wrote, amongst other books, Treasure Island (1883), The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Kidnapped (both 1886). In 1888, Stevenson left Britain in search of a warmer climate, settling in Samoa, where he died in 1894.