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Kidnapped
First published 2002 · 576 pages
A windswept, perilous flight across the Scottish Highlands that tests the limits of loyalty and survival.
What it feels like
Reading this classic adventure feels like plunging into the rugged, rain-lashed expanse of the Scottish Highlands. The narrative moves at a brisk, breathless clip, pulling you through a gauntlet of betrayal, shipwreck, and desperate survival. Its atmosphere is steeped in the damp chill of the heather and the tense, crackling energy of a country divided by political strife. The prose is robust and evocative, grounding the swashbuckling action in a deeply felt sense of place and authentic dialect. At its heart, it is an earnest exploration of an unlikely, prickly friendship forged in the crucible of shared peril. It will delight readers who crave old-fashioned, high-stakes escapades where coming-of-age means outrunning danger across a wild, unforgiving landscape.
- Mood
- rugged
- windswept
- perilous
- atmospheric
- Tone
- earnest
- spirited
- suspenseful
- wry
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- coming of age · loyalty and betrayal · survival against the elements · unlikely friendships
- The writing
- Robust and evocative nineteenth-century prose that vividly captures the Scottish landscape and authentic regional dialects.
- The arc
- The protagonist moves from naive vulnerability following a bitter betrayal to hardened resilience and a deep, hard-won camaraderie.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave classic, swashbuckling historical adventures and atmospheric journeys through rugged, unforgiving terrains.
Content notes
- kidnapping
- gun violence
- peril
- historical prejudice
- death
About the book
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.
Description from Open Library.
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