Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

After reading The Mysterious Island at the beginning of the month, I was in the mood for another adventure story. I decided to go with Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped. It's the 24th book on my Classics Club list, it's an adventure, and it wasn't too long, so I went with that. After the horrors of Ulysses, I find myself gravitating towards shorter books, for now.

The plot concerns a young Scottish man named David Balfour. At the beginning of the story, his father passes away and he sets out to seek his inheritance at the house of his uncle, the miserly Ebeneezer Balfour of Shaws. Once he gets to his uncle's home, however, things quickly turn sour. His uncle behaves in a strange and unfriendly manner, and within a few days, he arranges for him to be kidnapped, shanghaied, and sold into slavery. Not a touching family reunion, in other words.

David ends up on board a brig named the Covenant, where the rough crew abuses him and forces him to work as a cabin boy. They are destined for the shores of North Carolina, where David will be sold to a plantation. Poor weather, however, prevents them from making much headway in their journey, and they eventually collide with a smaller ship. The smaller ship is destroyed, and only one member of its crew survives. They take on this man onto their own ship, and after seeing that he has some gold on him, try to rob and murder him. Unfortunately for them, this man is none other than Alan Breck Stewart, famous Scottish soldier and Jacobite. He teams up with David, and the pair of them, after quite a bit of sword fighting, escape the ship and wash up on an inhospitable part of Scotland.

From this point forward, David and Alan have one mission - to make their way across Scotland into friendly territory so Alan can disappear and continue his part in the Jacobite Rebellion and David can return to his uncle and claim his rightful inheritance. Things are very sticky for them, however. After their escape from the Covenant, they have no money or supplies, Alan is wanted by the British government, and after being in the wrong place at the wrong time, they both end up being wanted for the murder of Colin Campbell of Glenure, a royal collections agent. To say the least, it's not an easy trip home for either of them.

This was a pretty fun story, but my enjoyment of it was slightly hampered by a lack of knowledge about Scottish history. The Jacobite Rebellion, Alan Breck Stewart, the murder of Colin Campbell, and numerous other events from its plot are all real events from history. Not knowing much about any of these things definitely meant that I was missing out on some of the quirks of the novel. I'm sure there were moments where I was supposed to be shocked at a person's identity, or chuckle at how reality and fiction mixed in certain events, and I totally missed out on those moments. I was really surprised at how historical this novel was. I wasn't expecting that at all.

Of course, even without knowing about the history of the time period, the story is still great fun and completely understandable. David is a likable character; he's young, naive, and principled, and it's very easy to cheer him on in all his daring escapes. Similarly, the friendship between him and Alan is a treat to watch evolve. Alan is quite charismatic, and becomes both mentor and friend to David throughout the novel. Realistically, they also get on each others' nerves during their journey, and that was quite funny to read about too. When they eventually part at the end of the story, I was surprised to find myself getting a little misty-eyed.

This is my third novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. I read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in college and Treasure Island years ago. Out of the three, this was probably my least favorite, but that's not to say that it was bad. I was a bit out of my depth with all of the historical inclusions, so I couldn't get as deep into the story as I could with his other novels. However, Kidnapped is one of those classic adventures that any fan of this genre will enjoy. It's a fun story with plenty of the charm you only get from reading an old story. I recommend giving it a shot (but maybe read about what the Jacobite Rebellion is first)!


Challenge Tally
Classics Club (#24 on my list): 34/100 

Total Books Read in 2019: 3