Kidnapped: contemporary reviews and responses

Full reviews

St. James’s Gazette, Monday 19 July 1886

Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

MR. STEVENSON’S NEW STORY*

Mr. Stevenson is the Defoe of our generation. Since the days when ‘‘Robinson Crusoe” first delighted English readers, no book of adventure has appeared that can pretend to rivalry with the story of “Treasure Island.” Beside the exquisite prose of Mr. Stevenson, his delightful quaintness of humour and his fertile inventiveness, the romances of Fenimore Cooper seem very poor performances. The simplicity which is the highest art, mastery of language, and a subtle and sympathetic power of compelling attention, are all at the command of Mr. Stevenson. He is rarely dull, he is often slily humorous, and he is prone to weave into his narrative a fine and brilliant thread of suggestive reflection which is alike characteristic and alluring. The wave of his magician’s wand is truly magical; but, while he draws his readers from a too prosaic world to one of aerial fancy, he lets them know in a sort of gravely jesting undertone that it is semblance and not reality. His writings inspire a pleasure which is all the more genuine and refreshing for their innocence; yet their fun, their effectiveness, their brilliancy would be much less striking were they not in part the result of a grave experience and understanding of human life, such as makes every man who is a man desire once more to become as a little child.

It is high praise, therefore, of this new volume to say that it is no unworthy companion of “Treasure Island.” Its incidents are not so uniformly thrilling; there is no touch of art in it quite equal to the account of the blind sailor’s visit to the country inn in the former story; yet Kidnapped is excellent from end to end. Two characteristics of Mr. Stevenson’s last volume are in themselves worthy of notice. The first, that, as in “Treasure Island,” he has succeeded in telling a story in which women and feminine influence play positively no part. There is no love-making in “Kidnapped,” and, with one exception, no woman takes any share in the action. There are some pretty and touching passages illustrative of the unspoken love of man for man which has been a finer side of human intercourse since the days of David and Jonathan. But of the conventional heroine and the yet more conventional love scene, which are wont to appear even in so-called books for boys, Mr. Stevenson will have none. Not but that he indulges in delicate incidental references to the fair sex; as witness his ruffian sea-captain Hoseason, who never sails by his aged mother’s cottage on the seashore of Fife without the compliment of a salute of guns. The second observation is that Mr. Stevenson has boldly and even wisely ventured into the field of Jacobite romance which has already been occupied by the genius of Sir Walter Scott. Different as the character of his book, we feel that indirectly Mr. Stevenson owes little of his general idea to the author of “Rob Roy” and “Waverley.” But although there is a perceptible parallel between the adventures of David Balfour and those that have immortalized the names of Osbaldistone and Bailie Jarvie, the parallel is too slight to be insisted on. The story of the Jacobite times is an inexhaustible mine for the writer of fiction, and the originality and literary skill of Mr. Stevenson is doubly welcome for addition to the number of Highland stories. “Rob Roy” is inimitable; but it says much for Mr. Stevenson’s powers that “Kidnapped” seems none the less charming for the very reason that it recalls the masterpieces of the greatest story-teller of our century.

The author summarizes his romance on his title-page as the “Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751: How he was Kidnapped and Cast away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; his Journey in the Wild Highlands; his Acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his Uncle Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so called.” To attempt to give any further idea of the adventures of the hero by sea and land would be the act of a spoil-sport; it is only befitting therefore to add that the adventures are so continuously thrilling as to preclude the chance of any one laying the book down before the last page is reached. Mixed feelings of disappointed curiosity in the present and pleasant hope for the future will contend in the reader’s breast when he finds that the matter is not brought to a thorough conclusion, but that several important particulars are left incomplete; with more than a hint that on some other day the further adventures of David Balfour will be related. Of the two personages who play the largest part in these pages, it is hard to say which creates the keener interest: David Balfour, the ostensible hero; or Alan Breck, most pugnacious and attractive of Jacobites, whose views of his duty towards his neighbours and hereditary foes the Campbells are expressed with a humour befitting our English apologists of Irish agrarian outrage. The best of them could be hardly more subtle in laying down a sound doctrine of assassination than is Alan in the following remarks anent his chief enemy, Colin Roy Campbell, called the Red Fox.

[quote from the novel, from “Alan,” said I, “ye are neither very wise...” to “...a lad and a gun behind a heather-bush.”]

Alan, indeed, is incorrigible on all matters of blood-feuds and fighting, but he is a delightful creature. We shall say nothing of wicked Uncle Ebenezer, or the perils and shipwreck of the brig Covenant, or of Mr. Stevenson’s wonderfully vivid pictures of physical fatigue and suffering as endured by the Jacobite fugitives who “took to the heather.” Those who have read Mr. Stevenson know the grace and magic of his pen, and they will need no solicitation to spend a few hours in the delight of “Kidnapped.”

*“Kidnapped.” By R. L. Stevenson. (London: Cassell and Co. 1886.)

There’s the David and Jonathan reference! The comparison to the contemporary unrest in Ireland is an interesting one.

Dundee Advertiser, Tuesday 20 July 1886

Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s latest work, Kidnapped (1), is a Scottish story, and deals with the Highlands during the disturbed period following the ’45. Like “Treasure Island,” it is autobiographical, the speaker being one David Balfour, whose adventures the book sets forth. The story opens with the lad’s setting out from Ettrick bearing a letter from his dead father to his kinsman at Shaws, near Cramond, where in due time he arrives, to find his uncle, “a mean, stooping, narrow-shouldered, clay-faced creature,” with an evil reputation as an eccentric miser over all the country side. The incidents of this visit are told in the book with a photographic fidelity which is most diverting. From some suspicious circumstances the lad is led to believe that his father had been the elder brother, and that he himself has a good claim on the estate. This displeased Uncle Ebenezer hugely, so, after failing to get him out of the way in an original fashion, he induced him one day to walk down to Queensferry with him, and by the good offices of an accommodating skipper the lad was decoyed on board the Covenant of Dysart, and kidnapped as neatly as possible for slavery in Carolina. In rounding the Northern shores of Scotland, however, the brig had the misfortune to run down a boat, the only person saved being a Highland officer, a Jacobite bound for France. This was Allan Breck Stewart [sic], a historical personage of some importance, who becomes henceforth one of the heroes the book. The captain of the Covenant, after agreeing to set the fugitive ashore, plots to seize him; but his scheme is frustrated by David, who warns Allan Breck, and assists him in his gallant fight against the ship’s crew which follows. The upshot of it is that the vessel is cast ashore on the island of Erraid, and all make their way to the mainland as best they may, David arriving after some days’ exposure on the island. The account of his wanderings after this in the Highlands, then terra incognita, and wild and lawless as the times, forms the most intensely interesting portion of the book, and furnishes a good idea of the state of the country at the period. Allan Breck had given him a silver button from his coat, which serves as a passport until he falls in again with that redoubtable rebel under circumstances of great peril, which are thus described:—

[quote from the novel, from As I was so sitting and thinking... to ...his head rolled on his shoulder, and he passed away.]

David is suspected, along with Allan Breck Stewart, of being concerned in the murder, and both are “papered” or proclaimed, and a price set upon their heads. Then commences their journey Southwards through a country infested with redcoats, and amidst incredible perils and hardships. In the course of their wanderings they fall into the hands of an outpost of friendly Highlanders, and enjoy the hospitality of Cluny Macpherson at his curious refuge known as the “Cage,” an incident which is described as follows:—

[quote from the novel, from When we came to the door... to ...hours after the barber was gone.]

By forced marches they come at last to the Forth, and being afraid to run the gauntlet of the sentry at Stirling Bridge, make their way over by a piece of adroit strategy, and come at length to the further shore in safety. David at once lays his case before his uncle’s lawyer at Queensferry, and by the aid of Allan Breck, who contrives to make Uncle Ebenezer confess in the hearing of others what he paid to have his nephew shipped to Carolina, the old curmudgeon is forced to admit the lad to his rights, and give an account of his stewardship. And so David Balfour comes to his kingdom, and says good-bye for the present to the reader. For the present, because the editor of this chapter of his life half promises that if there should be any desire to hear of the further fortunes of Allan Breck and David Balfour, he may one day re-open the story of their lives. Such is the brief outline of a fascinating book, and it only remains for us to indicate its special excellences. We may pay it at the outset the highest compliment possible to give a book of this class—it reminds us of Walter Scott and “Waverley,” and all the traditions which are associated with these names. Since the “Wizard of the North” laid down his pen we have had few writers who have come so close to the real Highland character in its fanatical loyalty, touchiness, and its vanity as the author of “Kidnapped,” and his sympathy with Scottish national life and characteristics should enable him to furnish many successors to this delightful story. A feature of the book which strikes the reader with a welcome freshness is the old-fashioned, deliberate diction of the man who tells the story, embellished with many odd expressions which in another generation will have vanished completely from our Scottish speech and from the memory of Scottish men and women. The character of Allan Breck, who never forgot to tell that he bore the name of a king, and who united the most undaunted courage to the temper of a spoilt child, strikes me as specially well drawn, faithfully reflecting the spirit of his age and race. Mr Stevenson is an artist in words, and his descriptions are as good as illustrations. The account of the encounter between Allan Breck and the crew of the Covenant, the two chapters called “The Flight in the Heather,” and the description of a bagpipe duel between Allan Breck and Robin Oig, a son of Rob Roy’s, are passages of graphic skill, and exhibit the author at his best in different moods. All who love fiction served up in this cultured way, where reflection and humour are not subordinated to incident, and where the incidents have all the vividness of a pictorial representation, will welcome the book. It too short; it leaves us firm friends with its heroes; and it is essentially good reading. A map showing the probable course of David Balfour’s wanderings accompanies the book.

(1) Kidnapped: Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751. By Robert Louis Stevenson. London: Cassell & Company.

Despite the wobbly use of tenses, this is a nice review, and more especial note taken of the geographical and historical fidelity of the book.

The Spectator, 24 July 1886

Vol. 59 issue 3,030. Available here.

KIDNAPPED.*

We question whether Mr. Stevenson will ever again come quite up to the freshness of Treasure Island, a book which may be said to have had more charm for boys than even Robinson Crusoe itself, though less for men. Indeed, we should be disposed to regard the boys of England who lived before Robinson Crusoe was written, as boys without a literature, and the boys who lived between Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island, as boys who had only a foretaste of what was in preparation for them; while boys who have lived since Treasure Island was published, are boys who have a right to look back on all previous boyhoods with compassion, as boyhoods sunk in comparative darkness, or touched only with the streaks of dawn. Kidnapped is not so ideal a story of external adventure as Treasure Island. On the other hand, it has more of human interest in it for those who have passed the age of boyhood. It touches the history of Scotland with a vigorous hand. It gives a picture of Highland character worthy of Sir Walter Scott himself. Its description of the scenery of the Highlands in the old, wild times, is as charming as a vivid imagination could make it; and the description of the cowardly old miser who plotted his nephew’s death rather than give him up his inheritance, is as vivid as anything which Mr. Stevenson’s singular genius has yet invented for us. Nor is there in this delightful tale the least trace of that evil odour which makes The Strange Story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde [sic] so unpleasant a reminiscence, in spite of the originality and eeriness of the inconceivable and illogical marvel on which it is based.

The power of Kidnapped consists chiefly in the great vivacity with which the portrait of the Highland chieftain is drawn, and with which the contrast is brought out between the frank vanity of the Highland character and the rooted self-sufficiency of the Lowland character in the relations between the Stewart of Appin and the Lowland hero of the adventures. So far as the mere story goes, though there is plenty of adventure, there is not that rush of danger and enterprise which transfigured Treasure Island. The story depends far more for its interest on the realities of history and character than that of the earlier tale. The first striking effect in the book is the description of the hatred in which the uncle of the hero is held by the country-folk in the neighbourhood of his house, the desolation of the old miser’s abode, and the struggle in his mind between his horror of his nephew, who may deprive him of his property, and his wish to keep him till some plan of finally ridding himself of the lad occurs. The description of his attempt to bring him to his death by sending him on a dark night up an unfinished staircase is very powerful:—

[quote from the novel, from The tower, I should have said, was square... to ...and tumbled to the floor like a dead man.]

The next great success in the book introduces us to the Highlander, the Stewart chief of Appin, whose character is so skilfully drawn that Scott himself would, we think, have been glad to own the picture. The hero, David Balfour, has helped him in his fight against the crew of the ‘Covenant,’ in which David Balfour had been kidnapped. The Highlander is as grateful as he is vain; but then, he is also as vain as he is grateful, and David Balfour, who is full of the self-sufficiency of the Lowlands, is not a little mortified at finding how little of the credit of the victory is set down to himself:—

[quote from the novel, from The round-house was like a shambles... to ...Alan always did me more than justice.]

In the relations between these two, the chief intellectual interest of the story consists. These relations are very powerfully drawn, and perhaps nothing is better told than the great quarrel which results from Alan’s borrowing David’s money to gamble with and lose, and the sulky bitterness with which David Balfour resents the wrong. The account of the long days of estrangement, during which the two flee together through the highlands, the one sullenly nursing his wrath, and perhaps partly on that account sickening for a long illness, while the other, after a generous effort to clear away the cause of quarrel by a candid acknowledgment of his fault, accepts the feud with a malignant joy, is admirably effective, as also is the close of the feud, when David breaks down altogether, and Alan all but carries him to the house of one of the Maclarens in the Braes of Balquidder. Perhaps, too, there is nothing much better in the book than the account of the contest between Alan Stewart and the Macgregor for victory as rivals on the bagpipes. Nothing could have brought out the petty vanity and the deep generosity of the Highland character better than this spirited contest.

On the whole, while this book is not quite so unique as Treasure Island, it has perhaps even more of the qualities proper to all true literature, and for the lovers of Scotch scenery and Scotch character it is altogether delightful. Mr. Stevenson has, so far as we know, written nothing which is more likely to live, and to be a favourite with readers of all sorts and classes.

*Kidnapped: being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751; how he was Kidnapped and Cast away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; his Journey in the Wild Highlands; his Acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he Suffered at the hands of his Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so called; Written by Himself, and now set forth. By Robert Louis Stevenson. London: Cassell and Company, Limited.

Despite the odd notion of Alan as a ‘chief’, this reviewer has the excellent taste to highlight the quarrel and its resolution as a particularly good bit, and to note that Alan and David’s relationship is one of the best things about the book (though ‘intellectual interest’ is not the phrase I’d use). For some reason, while this is certainly an original review, the first paragraph appears again in the Lyttelton Times (New Zealand) here, without apparent attribution.

The Times, 24 July 1886

Accessed via The Times Digital Archive.

KIDNAPPED.*

If there were many novelists who wrote like Mr. Stevenson, we fancy the orthodox three-volume novel would be doomed. Brilliant novelettes would become the rule and the rage, while more elaborate fictions would be the speculative exception, only justified by previous successes. “Kidnapped” is almost, if not quite, as fascinating as “Treasure Island;” and in some respects we prefer it. The interest is as steadily sustained, and there is more sobriety in the sensations. From the beginning to the end there is a rich variety of vividly dramatic incidents, and, if it breaks off with somewhat tantalizing abruptness, we are happy to say that the author holds out the promise of a sequel. In a brief postscript he modestly expresses a doubt as to whether the public will care for the company of Alan and David as much as he does. We think we may assure him that he need have no doubts upon that point. At the same time, and without prejudice to his continuing tho adventures of Alan, David, and Co., we venture to suggest another scheme, which he has, doubtless, considered. The title of “Kidnapped,” with the date and the design of this story, led us to expect that we should have been transported with the unlucky David to the Plantations, whither many an honest Briton was consigned to sufferings to which death, by sharp torture, would have been infinitely preferable. We suspect no one could depict more graphically that Transatlantic hell upon earth, with its psychological effects on naturally noble natures, than the author of “Treasure Island” and “Dr. Jekyll.”

In the meantime we may well be contented with what he has given us; and “Kidnapped,” as we think, ranks rather before “Treasure Island,” inasmuch as there are deeper and more delicate discriminations of character. And that is rare in a short tale of stirring adventure, although written with the romantic but realistic minuteness of Defoe. Mr. Stevenson’s novelette is essentially Scotch, steeped in strong local colour, and flavoured, perhaps a trifle too freely for southerners, with dashes of the north country Doric. But intelligent amateurs, as well as professional critics, will appreciate the wonderfully effective contrast of the natures and temperaments of the two heroes. It is a question of blood and ancestry, of immemorial habits and traditions. Each individual is the representative of a race, with its defects and its noblest qualities. Alan Breck is a thoroughbred Celt—fiery, impulsive, childishly vain, and only imperturbably cool in imminent danger. Stanch to his friendships, and worshipping his chief, he would draw upon his brother on small provocation. While as for David Balfour, though a mere lad, he will be as brave as his impetuous Highland friend, when years and the habit of danger have tempered his courage. Meanwhile, he has much of the Lowland doggedness and “canniness.” He broods over the griefs and wrongs which would rouse Alan to exasperation. He is slow to forgive, as he can never forget, and even in dire extremity has always an eye to the main chance, showing a certain sordid love of lucre which may have come to him by hereditary descent; for he was kidnapped at the instigation of an avaricious uncle, who is in wrongful possession of the family property, and has become the tyrant of the unfortunate tenants.

Possibilities, and even probabilities, are generally preserved throughout; but the commencement of the story reminds us of a fairy tale, where the innocent hero seeks hospitality in the castle of an ogre. The orphaned David Balfour leaves the home of his youth to seek his fortunes. In ignorance of this very near relationship, he is started with a letter of recommendation to his old kinsman Ebenezer. Signs and warnings thicken about him, as he approaches the ogre’s den, which is really the dilapidated mansion of his forefathers. He arrives at night, of course; he musters courage to knock, to parley, and to force the consigne. The suspicious old miser is most graphically depicted; with the strange inconsistencies that are ominously conspicuous even to the boy’s inexperienced eyes, David gets glimpses into the black depths of the soul of the recluse, by lurid flashes of almost instinctive perception. All his faculties are kept nervously on the strain during the day or two he passes under what ought to be his own roof. Incident succeeds incident, and he has a thrilling escape from a terrible death. Considering that he is kept at night under lock and key, and that the only lights in the ghostly house after dark come from the intermittent flashes of a fearful thunderstorm, it is much to the credit of his courage and astuteness that he gets the upper hand of his uncle. Fortunately for us, his over-confidence betrays him, and he is decoyed on board the good brig Covenant, on the understanding that the captain is to sell him as a plantation hand. Mr. Stevenson is lavish of admirable materials, and we see only too little of the captain and crew of the Covenant, from whom David is soon to be separated in a shipwreck. The gloomy skipper is picturesquely sketched—a cold-blooded scoundrel, with soft spots in his hardened heart where an old mother is concerned, a daring seaman in foul weather, though showing himself almost cowardly in a sharp passage of arms. So are the two hard-drinking mates, changing characters respectively for the better and the worse under the influence of strong liquors. And the life in a sea-going ship of the time has been most carefully studied.

David has been so far reconciled to his rough life on board the brig, although troubled with the horrors of the fate awaiting him, when salvation comes in an unexpected shape. A boat is run down in the narrow seas off the Hebrides, and Alan Breck, who boasts the royal patronymic of Stewart, swings himself on the deck by the bowsprit. In that extremity Alan’s coolness does not belie itself. He strips a heavy overcoat, showing offensive weapons in the shape of sword and pistols, as if he had quietly embarked in the Firth of Forth. His coolness and courage are speedily tested. Warned of a conspiracy against his life by David, the two hold their own against the whole strength of the ship’s company through a struggle which rather tries our credulity. When the brig is cast away upon the rocks of Mull, they are separated to come together there. Thenceforward we have a series of hairbreadth escapes and a terrible record of pitiful sufferings. For in 1751, after the rising of the ’45, the disaffected districts were swarming with troops, and the Highlanders who had taken part for the King were revenging themselves on the unfortunate adherents of the Pretender. Alan Breck, though a faithful friend, was a dangerous companion. The “countries” where he would have been welcomed were carefully watched, and everywhere else he moved about among hereditary enemies. To make matters worse, the companions are compromised by the murder of a Campbell, when a price is put upon their heads and they are minutely described in hand-bills. They travel by night, and lie hidden through the days. Yet sometimes they are forced to shift their quarters in daylight, when they must crawl through bog and heather as if they were stalking the deer, for they know that each commanding height may be picketed. They lie simmering through blazing sunshine “on the bare top of a rock like scones upon a girdle.” They have to trust their secret to doubtful or timid friends who may possibly be tempted to betray it, though they might have felt their mental anxieties the more, had they not been distracted by the extremities of thirst and hunger. We do not suppose Mr. Stevenson has ever been hunted himself, like the freebooting heroes of the Last Minstrel and the Ballads of the Border. Yet we should be more than half inclined to believe it, from his sympathetic analysis of David Balfour’s agonies when he had nearly been run off his legs in following the wiry Alan, while even Alan lies sobbing through his well-seasoned lungs in a way pathetically eloquent of the extremity of exhaustion. We should gladly have dwelt on some of the episodes and interludes, as in what strikes us as an almost inimitable description of the interview between Alan and Robin Oig Macgregor, the younger son of Rob Roy. The two Highland gamecocks go ruffling up to each other—their stiff courtesy having more and more of dynamitic starch in it, as their hands are clutching at their sword hilts, till they are persuaded by their host and common friend to a peaceful match with the bagpipes, when Alan, under the charm of Macgregor’s masterly melody owns himself vanquished by strains that have paralyzed his sword arm. We might quote some of the quaint touches of humour and self revelation which make the volatile Alan so wonderfully lifelike. But we must be content to say, in conclusion, that the book has other merits besides those of brilliant romance. It abounds in delightful descriptions of the scenery of the Scottish coasts and the wildest hills and glens of the Western Highlands, while it gives a most vivid account of the unsettled state of the disturbed districts after the rebellion, which, no doubt, has been drawn from the best authorities. À propos to this we may call special attention to the chapter entitled “Cluny’s Cage,” showing how a patriarchal chief, confiding in the loving devotion of his clan, could bid defiance for years to the pursuit of the Government, in spite of penalties and proffered rewards appealing to their fears and their poverty.

*“Kidnapped.” By Robert Louis Stevenson. Cassell and Co., 1886.

A nicely long and detailed review! Stevenson himself was not impressed by the idea, apparently common amongst the book’s early critics, that the two main characters are each the absolute “representative of a race”. He said in a letter to J. M Barrie in 1892 (quoted in the 1994 Penguin Classics edition of the book):

I was pleased to see how the Anglo-Saxon theory fell into the trap: I gave my Lowlander a Gaelic name, and even commented on the fact in the text; yet almost all critics recognised in Davie and Alan a Saxon and a Celt. I know not about England; in Scotland at least, where Gaelic was spoken in Fife little over the century ago, and in Galloway not much earlier, I deny that there exists such a thing as a pure Saxon, and I think it more than questionable if there be such a thing as a pure Celt.

I especially like the note here of the vivid descriptions of physical hardship in Davie’s journeys across the Highlands. As to whether ‘Mr. Stevenson has ever been hunted himself’, Isobel MacArthur in the NTS stage adaptation advances the theory that this practical experience was contributed to the book by Fanny, an idea which I like!

Pall Mall Gazette, Tuesday 27 July 1886

Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

“KIDNAPPED”*

When we say that “Kidnapped” is not especially a story for boys, we have not the least doubt that any boy of intelligence will read it with a vast amount of pleasure. We mean that it has literary qualities which should satisfy the most mature taste; a realistic power of the very best and most wholesome kind, and a quite remarkable vividness of personification and description. If we regard it simply as an historical study, it gives, we take it, a better notion of the condition of the Scotch Highlands, as they were after the so-called pacification of 1746, than could be got from a whole shelf-full of the ordinary authorities. Interesting and even exciting as is the story, we pause again and again to think over the remarkably lifelike personages who act in it, the vivid scenes, natural and human, in which it is transacted.

It must not be supposed, indeed, that there is anything peculiarly heroic in the hero. He is a Lowland Scot of the common type, with something more than the average amount of “grip,” solidity, and self-confidence that have given his race such a capacity for getting on in the world as none other, perhaps, has ever had. David Balfour is the son of a “dominie” in Ettrick; but the dominie is really a man of family and estate, only that by an arrangement which is, we think, the one weak spot in Mr. Stevenson’s story he has renounced them. He does not appear in the tale, which opens with David’s going forth, provided with a letter from his dead father, to seek his inheritance. The uncle, who holds the “House of Shaws,” is, of course, ill-pleased to see the claimant to his estate, and schemes to get rid of him. This gives occasion for a wonderfully effective picture of the lad’s first narrow escape, as he climbs the ruined staircase to fetch the chest of deeds, and sees, by a flash of summer lightning how another step would have sent him headlong down the well.

This scheme having failed, there comes the plan of kidnapping. David is to be shipped off to the “plantations,” the captain receiving a sum of ready money with the prospect of whatever he may be able to realize for the services of the “apprentice,” as slaves were called then, as indeed they are now, in parts beyond the sea. The apprenticeship scheme, however, comes to nothing, thanks to the appearance upon the scene of “the man with the belt of gold,” perhaps the most striking of all the personalities of the story. Alan Stewart, alias Alan Breck, is carrying rent—the second rent which the clansmen paid out of their poverty—to his exiled chief in France. David and Alan have a great fight—Mr. Stevenson has never done anything better than this—for the belt and their lives; and their comradeship in danger makes a tie between them that is not to be broken. But first come the “sufferings upon a desert isle,” which form a remarkable episode in the story. The vessel in which David has been kidnapped and in which he has fought his great fight is cast away, and he hardly wins his way to land; then having won it, he nearly dies of cold and hunger. His despair as one hope after another disappears; his fury of rage and grief when a boat mocks him with the prospect of deliverance, and disappears with what he thinks most inhuman laughter from the crew, are admirably wrought up. And when we find the cause of the laughter, that the inland-bred has been a voluntary prisoner, shut up in an island from which the mainland of Mull could always be reached at low water, we feel ourselves to have been as much befooled as he was. All this is very skilfully managed. But the best part of the story is yet to come. Colin Roy Campbell, the King’s factor for one of the forfeited Highland estates, is shot dead as he is going on one of his errands, and David Balfour and Alan Stewart are suspected of the deed. The story of their escape occupies the latter part of the book, and Mr. Stevenson has put some of his very best work into it. These two companions, so strangely brought together—the sturdy, sensible Lowland lad, in his ragged coat, and the fiery Highlander, in his faded finery, as irritable and vain as he is loyal and brave, no match for his companion’s strength, but with all the characteristic endurance of his race, make both physically and morally a curiously picturesque contrast. And their adventures as they fly from the pursuit of the red-coats will be followed with breathless interest. From Appin (where Colin Roy was killed) they make their way through Glencoe up to the foot of Ben Alder, and thence across Loch Ericht and Loch Rannoch down to Balquhidder. Any reader who may be meditating a tour in those parts cannot do better than take Mr. Stevenson’s book in his pocket and follow the fugitive’s route, of which the author very kindly supplies a map. We warn him that he will find the Ericht country—it is of the tarn not the Dalwhinnie end that we are speaking—not very much changed by the last hundred and thirty years; but this will make him appreciate David’s “Journey in the Wild Highlands” all the more. Unhappily he will not have the opportunity of making acquaintance with what are perhaps the most characteristic place and person in the book, Cluny Macpherson, in his “cage.”

*Kidnapped: being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1757.” [sic] By Robert Louis Stevenson. (London: Cassell and Co. 1886.)

Nicely written praise, and I do like the suggestion of using the map in the book for a fannish holiday!

Burnley Gazette, Saturday 31 July 1886

Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

The best of recent novels is probably Mr. Stevenson’s “Kidnapped.” It appeared first of all in a weekly paper for boys, but its story and style are so good that their seniors will be disposed to esteem it even more highly. One advantage it has over other novels is that it is an historical study of a period, which has generally been overlooked both by romancists and by more serious students. No writer seems to have chosen as his theme the changes that came over the Highlanders after the disaster at Culloden. Every one knows that the people gradually settled down into a kind of life hardly to be distinguished from that on the other side of the Border, and that the country was turned into sheep farms and deer forests. But the process, especially in the case of the people, has hitherto remained undescribed. The scenes of Mr. Stevenson’s story lie chiefly in the Highlands at the very time this important change in character and habit was taking place. And they are described with as much sympathy humour [sic], as knowledge and literary skill, thus giving permanent value to a story which is interesting enough in itself. And the book will probably take its place side by side with the historical novels of better known writers, as amongst the best means of making acquaintance with a period during which the Highland chiefs were transformed into squires, and the curious morality of the people was brought into harmony with the normal standards. For holiday reading on the wet days when out-door life is impossible, nothing could be better suited, provided the reader has taste enough to appreciate honest workmanship.

This historical angle is an interesting one—and makes an interesting contrast to all the comments on The Flight of the Heron that the ’45 itself is a hugely clichéd setting for a historical novel.

The New York Times, Sunday 1 August 1886

Available here.

A BRA’ STORY.

KIDNAPPED. Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751. Written by himself and now set forth by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. New-York: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.

It is that manysidedness Mr. Stevenson possesses which makes him so remarkable as an author, and this power of change is not alone as to construction of plot, but as to the particular method of treatment. He is not always pscychological [sic]. Of course, ‘‘le style c’est l’homme,” for whatever Mr. Stevenson writes he does in a capital manner, but where his supreme art is discoverable is in doing such a variety of things so well. “Kidnapped” may have a little touch of ‘‘Treasure Island” in it, but for a man to have written “Treasure Island” and to have then produced as dramatic a story as ‘‘Kidnapped” is to have done a good deal. One evidence of Mr. Stevenson’s great judgment is that he knows exactly how many pages to write, and does not extend indefinitely his story. On this account he never is wearisome. He seems, too, to have the knack of presenting action. His characters are always on the full go, and bustle about. They take their rest, as does the reader, only when a bit of description comes in. It is “the go” in Mr. Stevenson which carries you along with him. Perhaps the greatest compliment that can be paid Mr. Stevenson is to say that he has the true Defoe manner, for there all those little side issues, trifles, as it were, which he often introduces, which makes the whole thing, though you know it to be fiction, to read as if it were fact.

The period chosen by Mr. Stevenson is when the Highlander was not yet quite decided to accept Hanoverian rule, and because Davie was present when a slight accident happened—only the assassination of a man who had turned against his own clan—Davie has to run for his life, and many are the trying adventures and hairbreadth escapes he passes through. Davie’s start in life is fraught with peril. He has an uncle, Ebenezer, of the house of Shaws, who has taken Davie’s estate, and Ebenezer tries to get rid of his nephew by making him mount a ruined staircase where one false step would have made him fall and dash his brains out. Davie’s escape is a wonderful one. Then Ebenezer induces Davie to go with him to Queen’s Ferry, where the brig Covenant, Capt. Hoseason, lies. Davie innocently gets into a boat and is rowed to the Covenant, when he is knocked down, put below, and then he knows he has been kidnapped, and is on the way to the Carolinas, where he will be sold and have to work like a white slave. As the Covenant rounds Scotland, to take a western course, she runs down a boat, and the only man saved is thus described:

“He was smallish in stature, but wellset and as nimble as a goat; his face was of a good open expression, but sunburnt, very dark, and heavily freckled and pitted with smallpox; his eyes were unusually light and a kind of dancing madness [sic] in them that was both engaging and alarming; and when he took off his great coat he laid a pair of fine, silver-mounted pistols on the table, and I saw that he was belted with a great sword.”

That’s a picture like one of Meissonier’s. Davie, who had been nearly maltreated to death on board ship, had at last been released, and had discovered that Captain, mates, and crew were all villains and cut-throats. A poor devil of a ship’s boy, Ransome, had waited on the officers, but Shuan, the first mate, a drunken maniac, had with a blow killed Ransome, so Davie was made to take his place. The man who had escaped when the boat was run down proved to be an emissary, who collected money from the Highlanders for the use of their friends “over the water.” Alan Breck is the type of a brave little man who would at any time rather fight than eat, a real bantam cock. Alan offers Capt. Hoseason 60 guineas to land him on the east coast of Scotland, or 30 if on the west. Capt. Hoseason sees the gold in Alan’s belt, knows that a price is set on Alan’s head, and determines to rob and murder him. Davie has overheard the Captain and his mates while concocting their plan, and, angered himself at their cruelty, warns Alan Breck of the danger. The Captain has no pistols, his are in the roundhouse, where Alan is, and Davie is sent on a pretext to get arms and powder. Then Davie discloses the plot to the bantam cock, who seems delighted at the chance of a fight. Davie agrees to help the little man, and then comes a regular battle. Alan’s sword deals death, and Davie’s pistol does terrible work. Shuan is killed and many of the sailors wounded; then a truce is called and agreed upon. The Covenant in a gale of wind runs aground on Erraid Island, off Mull, and founders. Davie scrambles to the shore, while most of the ship’s crew go to the bottom. But nothing can kill Alan Breck, and he lands too. On the brig he has complimented Davie for his gallantry and given him a silver button from his coat, which acts as a talisman for Davie in his wanderings. Davie is not for Prince Charlie—but for the King; he is, however, among the Highlands and must hold his peace. The description of Davie’s forced journey through Scotland is inimitably told, but it is Alan Breck who is the real hero. Those troublesome times of Scotland, the devotion of the Highlanders to the Stuarts, their pride, their courage, their revenge, their misery, are depicted with a master hand. One must compare things, and now and then one thinks of the great Wizard of the North when Mr. Stevenson paints his pictures. Almost at the close of the book there is one episode which Mr. Stevenson tells with the utmost spirit. Alan, who is always in for a fight, comes across Robin Oig, no less a personage than one of the sons of Rob Roy. The sight of each other, both fighting men in their way, is enough to ruffle their feathers. At once they bandy words, for Alan can’t stand even the name of a Campbell, and it looks as if it were to be a question of swords and dirks. Duncan Dhu, who is the host, bids his guests not quarrel, and makes his wife brew an Athole brose, “which is made of old whisky, strained honey, and sweet cream, slowly beaten together in right order and proportion.” “Gentlemen,” said Duncan Dhu, “I will have been thinking of a different matter, whateffer. Here are my pipes, and here are you two gentlemen who are baith acclaimed pipers. It’s an auld dispute which one of ye’s the best. Here will be a braw chance to settle it.” * * * “Are ye a bit of a piper?” asked Alan. ‘‘I can pipe like a Macrimmon,” cries Robin. “And that is a very bold word,” quoth Alan. ‘‘I have made bolder words good before now,” returned Robin, “and that against better adversaries.” Then Robin took the pipes and played a spring in a ranting manner. “Aye ye can blow,” said Alan, and then Alan played the same spring and wandered into variations, which, as he went on, he decorated with a perfect flight of grace notes such as pipers love and are called warblers. “That’s no so bad,” said the rival, ‘‘but ye show a poor device in your warbles.” ‘‘Me?” cried Alan, the blood starting to his face. “I give ye the lie.” “Do ye ain yourself beaten at the pipes, then,” said Robin, “that ye seek to change them for the sword?” Then Robin played, and played so wonderfully, with such ingenuity and sentiment, with so odd a fancy, and so quick a knack of the grace notes that at last Alan, though his face grew dark and hot and he gnawed his fingers, had to cry: “Enough; ye can blow the pipes. Make the most of that.” But Robin Oig did not stop; he played a piece so well that Alan needs must listen, and then all signs of his anger died from him, and he had no thought but for the music. ‘ Robin Oig,” he said, “ye are a great piper. I am not fit to blow in the same kingdom with ye, * * * and though it still sticks in my mind that I could maybe show ye another of it with cold steel, I warn ye beforehand it’ll not be fair. It would go against my heart to haggle a man that can blow a pipe as you can.” Thereupon the quarrel was made up, and all night long ‘‘the brose was going and the pipes changing hands.”

There are many clever touches by means of which Mr. Stevenson shows the manners of the time. “Kidnapped” carries you along and you tramp over the rocky boulders, lie down and hide in the heather with Davie and Alan as they make their dangerous way through the red-coated soldiers who are after them, from Mull, through Morven, Glencoe, Glenorchy, Balquhidder, and Umavar, until, thanks to a pretty maid who knew what “Charlie is my darling” meant, she helped the fugitives across the river to Queen’s Ferry.

Oh, wouldn’t Alan just like this review—‘the little man’, ‘the bantam cock’! While not brilliantly written this is a spirited review, and gets at some of the good features of the book; and I like to see a mention of the lass at the change-house, my favourite minor character.

Daily Telegraph & Courier, Monday 2 August 1886

Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

Though it is, perhaps, as Sydney Smith suggested, a hundred years since even a pig was killed in fair fight on English soil, yet a germ pugnacious still vegetates among us, and British boys are as fond, no doubt, as they have ever been of adventure and conflict. Mr. Robert L. Stevenson’s “Kidnapped” (Cassell) will supply them with abundant and harmless amusement. His narrative, he says, is “no furniture for the scholar’s library, but a book for the winter evening schoolroom, when the tasks are over and the hour for bed draws near; and honest Alan, who was a grim old fire-eater in his day, has in this new avatar no more desperate purpose than to steal some young gentleman’s attention from his Ovid, carry him awhile into the highlands and the last century, and pack him to bed with some engaging images to mingle with his dreams.” These memoirs and adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751 recount in graphic steps how he was kidnapped as a recruit for the “plantations” of the West, but being cast away, suffered much on a desert island, that, namely, of Mull, and thence journeyed through the wild hill country in company with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites, with much more hardship that he suffered at the hands of his uncle Balfour of Shaws. This genial author, whose “Silverado Squatters” and “New Arabian Nights” will be remembered with pleasure by all who have read them, writes in exactly the style best calculated to please those to whom he offers his book; and while his story is profoundly thrilling, there does not seem to be anything unwholesome in it from beginning to end. Our Saxon blood must indeed be flowing thinner and whiter than it did once, if boys can prefer the nauseous sentimentality of a certain school to such sturdy pages as these.

I like their cheek pretending to summarise the plot and then just paraphrasing the subtitle.

The Morning Post, 5 August 1886

Accessed via British Library Nineteenth Century Newspapers.

KIDNAPPED.*

The magic pen of Mr. R. L. Stevenson has added to the list of fascinating stories with which his name is associated by a tale which, if not equal to “Treasure Island,” may yet claim to rank among the best of his works. Written rather for schoolboys than for their elders, “Kidnapped” breathes just that spirit of romance and daring, as pure and strong as the mountain breezes of the Western Highlands, which charms the mind, and seizes the imagination of a lad in his teens. The plot of Mr. Stevenson’s book may not be altogether new, but it is upon the strength of incidents, descriptive power, and the glamour of chivalry with which the prominent character is invested, that the author mainly relies in order to secure the attention of his young readers. Young David Balfour, whose marvellous adventures at sea and in the wild Highlands of Scotland form the subject matter of the story, and who had been deprived by an unscrupulous uncle of his lawful heritage, is betrayed by his relative into the hands of a rascally mariner, after a futile attempt to lead him to destruction in a deserted tower in the house of Shaws. On board the Covenant, of Dysart, David learns his prospective fate of slavery in the tobacco plantations of the Carolinas. When some ten days outward on her voyage the Covenant ran down a boat, on board of which was a daring Jacobite, Alan Breck Stewart, who to save his life was glad enough to take refuge in the vessel which so nearly deprived him of it. Alan is proscribed, but has managed to make many journeys from France to his beloved country, where his influence among the adherents of Prince Charlie in Appin is unbounded. He wears fine French clothes, and “bears a king’s name.” Upon the character of this vain yet gallant chieftain the author has expended the greatest care. One can imagine the nature of the man who can raise the ardour of his followers by the badge on a coat button; who is ever ready to fight single-handed against overwhelming odds, who is as tender as a woman to his companion, but whose conceit and self-satisfaction are boundless. Mr. Stevenson has exactly caught the spirit of the ideal Jacobite leaders, whose belief in their own prowess, and pride in their lineage they amply justified by their gallant deeds and noble bearing. The villainous Hoseason and his crew determine to attack Alan, who has on his person a heavy belt of gold, but David overhears the plot and reveals it to him. The pair become sworn friends, and successfully resist the onslaught of the seamen, who become so reduced in numbers in the fight that they make terms with Alan and get him to pilot the vessel through the dangerous rocks and reefs by which they are surrounded. The brig is wrecked near the shores of Erraid and the Ross of Mull, and David for a time is separated from his new ally. He finds him, however, on the hills in the heather, and the wanderings and adventures which ensue are of the most exciting description. It would be unfair to the reader to anticipate the pleasure he will enjoy in following the fugitives by revealing the troubles, dangers, and hairbreadth escapes which they experienced, or to elucidate the circumstances under which they fled the country of the Campbells, under suspicion of being concerned in the death of the Red Fox, Colin Roy of Glenure. After unheard of hardships, David arrives at his native place and obtains possession of his estate, in the enjoyment of which the author leaves him not without a promise of future tidings should his young friends desire further acquaintance with him and his valiant comrade, Alan Breck. Mr. Stevenson is to be congratulated upon his success in contributing to the none too large store of healthy literature suitable for schoolboys. In the fortunes of the Prince “whose back was at the wa’,” there is ample scope for so gifted a writer as Mr. Stevenson to write stories which shall appeal directly to the love of adventure and honourable strife which is happily implanted in the breasts of English boys. In “Kidnapped” the author has used his opportunities to the fullest extent, and has produced a work which will interest and amuse many to whom the study of Virgil and Ovid is but a distant recollection.

*Kidnapped; being the Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751. By Robert Louis Stevenson, London; Cassell and Co. (Limited).

I like the description of Alan here (especially ‘as tender as a woman to his companion’, aww)—though this reviewer also mistakes him for a chieftain. Incidentally the song quoted, ‘Here’s His Health in Water’, was used by D. K. Broster as an epigraph in The Wounded Name.

Toronto Daily Mail, Thursday 5 August 1886

Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

It is scarcely going too far to say that Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, the most versatile of living authors, is at the same time the most popular one. He has won for himself a vast constituency of admirers, who hail each new work from his pen with genuine pleasure. The wonderful success of his “Treasure Island” and “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” now bids fair to be surpassed by that of his latest work. Its comprehensive title is “Kidnapped: Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751; How he was Kidnapped and Cast Away; His Sufferings in a Desert Isle; his Journey in the Wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called,” (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; Toronto: Williamson & Co.) It is a rare tale of stirring adventure written for boys, but with such consummate art as to captivate readers of all ages. It abounds in unusual and striking episodes, and is full of life and action. The scene is laid in Scotland, and the author presents many delightful descriptions of Scottish coasts and the Western Highlands. The pictures of the life of the clansmen and of the Jacobite refugees are vivid and intensely realistic, and the incidents described highly dramatic. In short the book is a brilliant one, and will have a host of readers; within ten days of its publication 10,000 copies were sold. Mr. Stevenson brings his story to an end somewhat abruptly, but he promises his readers that if it takes the public fancy he may at some future day give them the sequel. It may be taken for granted, then, that we will have it.

The Graphic, Saturday 7 August 1886

Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

Were it not that Mr. R. Louis Stevenson has himself created the high standard by which we judge his work, “Kidnapped” (Cassell and Co.) would be pronounced a first-rate story for boys. But by the publication of “Treasure Island” Mr. Stevenson has raised so high the standard of boys’ books that we cannot accept “Kidnapped” as being quite in the front rank. Of course there is much in it that is admirable; Mr. Stevenson, even in his least successful moods, is always picturesque and humorous; his style always remains a model of pure and powerful English. But we undoubtedly miss the creative impulse—the full force of imaginative invention which made “Treasure Island” famous. “Kidnapped” is the story of the adventures of a young Scotch lad during the Jacobite rebellion. He is captured by a wicked uncle, packed on board ship, and sent off to be sold as a slave. The ship, for its rascally crew and evil reputation, rivals the Hispaniola. Of course there is a fight on board, in which one Alan Breck greatly distinguishes himself. Alan Breck is indeed the feature of the book. His character is admirably drawn, and the friendship between Alan and David Balfour, the hero, is a most touching and beautiful conception. There is adventure on every page; and all through there is that masterly blending of humour, pathos, and tragedy which has made Mr. Stevenson a new power in English literature. Every one who has followed Mr. Stevenson’s career with interest—and these include all lovers of good books—will of course read “Kidnapped” with eagerness, and will accept it with thankfulness. It is wonderful that a man who is always struggling against the most deplorable ill-health should produce a book of such power; but Mr. Stevenson has told us himself that he yet hopes to produce a masterpiece, and we have no doubt he will.

‘A most touching and beautiful conception’, aww.

The Illustrated London News, 7 August 1886

Available here.

In the art of relating hair-breadth escapes and perils by sea and land, few writers can equal Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson; and his latest story, Kidnapped (Cassell and Co.), is fully worthy of his fame. In one respect he reminds us of Defoe, who was in the habit of giving what may be called an abstract of his tale on the title-page. And so here we read that the volume relates the adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751, “How he was Kidnapped and Cast Away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; his Journey in the Wild Highlands; his Acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other Notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he Suffered at the Hands of his Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour, of Shaws, falsely so-called.” It is a spirited narrative throughout; true, not only to the human nature which makes the world kin, but to the peculiar clannish feeling and to the code of honour that prevailed in the Scottish Highlands during the troubles of 1745 and of the years that followed. David, the young hero of the story, is brave, bold, and withal a little presumptuous, but a more thoroughly good fellow it would be difficult to find in fiction or in life, and readers young and old alike may be recommended to make his acquaintance. Stewart’s character, too, is drawn with admirable art—a man of dauntless courage, quick to take offence, and full of vanity, who thinks it his duty as a gentleman to shield the murderer of a foe, though he would not commit a murder himself. So on one occasion he exposed Alan [sic] and himself “to draw the soldiers,” and was content that he and his friend should be hunted night and day for an offence they had not committed. There was no choice, he told David; they must take to the heather, or hang; and the tale of their adventures with a price set upon their heads is told with that vivid power of representation in which Mr. Stevenson excels. The interest is so sustained that not a page of the story can be missed; and one is surprised at the art which brings together in closest friendship and in equal danger a fiery Jacobite and a country lad wholly unconcerned with politics, and entirely content to acknowledge the authority of King George. There are touches of humour interspersed in the exciting narrative; and one of these is seen in the way in which the music of the bagpipes reconciles two deadly enemies. They contend with the pipes before using the sword; and Alan at last confesses that he is beaten by Robin Oig—who, by-the-way, is a son of the famous Rob Roy—and he will not fight a man who can play so well. “Robin Oig,” he said, “ye are a great piper. I am not fit to blow in the same kingdom with ye. . . . It would go against my heart to haggle a man that can blow the pipes as you can.” How the wicked uncle, who is the source of David Balfour’s troubles and of the reader’s pleasure, is made to suffer at last we shall not venture to explain, for it is not fair to tell too much about a story which is sure to be greedily perused by scores of young readers. For ourselves, though no longer young—“Ah, far the days ’twixt now and then!”—we confess to having hurried through the pages of “Kidnapped” with something like a boy’s eagerness and enthusiasm.

I like this reviewer’s praise for the skilfully-portrayed unlikely friendship!

Punch, 7 August 1886

Vol. 91 issue 2,352. Available here.

PAPER-KNIFE POEM.

(By Our Special Book-Marker.)

“KIDNAPPED”

A graphic story here you’ll find, by R. L. STEVENSON,
It beats the Treasure Island—or any he has done!
From opening unto finish your attention’s kept alive—
The scene is laid in Scotland, just after ’Forty-five—
’Tis a tale of wild adventure most marvellously told,
And cunningly the writer does his clever plot unfold;
Throughout the narrative we find the author at his best,
’Tis full of fight and bustle and of thrilling interest;
The characters are drawn, you’ll find, with most consummate skill,—
A book you ought at once to read, and read at once you will!

Punch’s poetic reviews are a delight, and the praise in this one is thoroughly deserved.

The American, 14 August 1886

Vol. 12 issue 314. Available here.

KIDNAPPED. By Robert Louis Stevenson. New York: Chas. Scribner’s Sons.

In its particular field this is a very notable book, and sure to be highly popular. Whether we commend it to young readers as a story of adventure, or to older ones as a historical, social, and even ethnical study, either way the recommendation is perfectly safe. Since Scott’s ‘‘Rob Roy” and “Legend of Montrose,” there has been nothing of the sort better, and scarcely anything so good.

This narrative is one of action and incident, from beginning to end. David Balfour, an orphan boy of eighteen, is the central figure, and relates his story himself, at a later period of life. Commended by his dying father to an uncle’s care, he finds the latter a miserly old wretch, who procures David to be kidnapped on board a ship going to the American colonies, the intent being to sell the lad as a servant in Carolina, after the fashion of poor Lord Annesley, in Pennsylvania, whose adventures Charles Reade used in his novel. The ship, leaving the mouth of the Forth, goes round the north of Scotland, and is wrecked on the west coast, among those storm-beaten islands where the “crofters” dwell, and William Black’s yachting novels are so much evolved. The lad, however, gets ashore, spends a day or two on a “desert island,” and then, reaching the mainland, enters upon a course of adventure among the Highlanders, in company with a Stewart clansman, Alan Breck, which are at once diverting and exciting. For the time is 1751, and the last rising of the Jacobites, 1745, is scarcely yet subsided. The Highland region is still harried and harassed by the Hanoverian authorities, and the tribal feuds of the Campbells and Stewarts are inflamed by political zeal and greed of possession. In the midst of it all, the boy and his companion get through safely, but with great hardship and serious danger, and they emerge, at length, from the Highland country, to cross the Forth onto safe ground, by the secret help of a sympathizing inn girl, arriving in the very neighborhood of “Mr. Ebenezer Balfour, of Shaws,” by whose cruel craft the lad was kidnapped a few weeks before.

It is not easy to imagine Mr. Stevenson writing in a manner other than entertaining. But his versatility, and the scope of his art, are a continual surprise. This, to be sure, is somewhat in the style of “Treasure Island,” but it has essential differences, and it widens the field of his production. It has a special characteristic as a historical work—as much so as any of Scott’s—for it deals accurately with actual places and real people, according to the precise circumstances of the day in which the action is fixed.

It will not be denied, hereafter, in any quarter, we should say, that there is “something in” Mr. Stevenson. He is called by turns a worthy successor of De Foe, of Cooper, of Hawthorne, and of Poe. One man resembling those four opposed men of genius! And yet it is a fact that he is extremely like them all, and that his art, at many points, does not suffer by comparison with their best.

I’m amused to see that this reviewer takes a side in the debate about David’s age! And a nice variety of literary comparisons.

The Athenaeum, 14 August 1886

Issue 3,608. Available here.

Kidnapped: being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751. By Robert Louis Stevenson. (Cassell & Co.)

It seems to be considered necessary that the schoolboy of the period should be supplied with a new story of adventure for every day in the week. It also seems to be considered necessary that men of genius should be told off to write them—men who, like Mr. Rider Haggard and Mr. Stevenson, are sorely needed to produce stories for men and women. The consequence is that some of the most picturesque and vigorous imaginative writing that has been produced of late years is to be found in such boys’ books as ‘King Solomon’s Mines,’ ‘Treasure Island,’ and the tale before us. We are not sure that this is entirely a fortunate circumstance. In novels written for adult readers it is not enough to furnish a rapid succession of brilliant scenes; these scenes must be accounted for by that severe logic of the imagination which is as inexorable as the logic of the schools. But in stories written for boys the action moves in entire freedom from those conditions which are at once the trammel and the strength of true art. Hence in fictive art no boys’ story can hold a very high place, no matter how powerful may be the imagination informing it. Perhaps we had better give an illustration of our meaning. When the writer of a boys’ story wants, as in ‘King Solomon’s Mines,’ to show how, in a great battle between many thousands of savage combatants, two English heroes can display prodigies of strength and valour equal to those of Achilles or Sigurd, and yet come out of the fray unwounded, he can without hesitation furnish his heroes with European chain-armour the moment it is required—find it stowed away in the armoury of an African tribe who are ignorant of firearms, and who, like the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, actually believe the white men to have fallen from the stars. And when, as in the book before us, the writer of a boys’ story wants to show the superhuman fighting powers of a hero, a Highland soldier, he can depict him fighting and conquering an entire ship’s crew of reckless desperadoes and fire-eaters—fighting and conquering them single-handed save for the aid of a boy who knows not how to handle sword or pistol. Such incidents as these, which are perfectly legitimate in a boys’ story, would be absurd in a story for adults, and it is a first principle of criticism that no form of art is very high if it can dispense with the logic of imagination.

This is seen plainly enough if we compare the prowess of Mr. Stephenson’s [sic] Alan Breck in the round-house with the feats of Dandie Dinmont in the smugglers’ cave. While in the one case the very charm of the thing lies in its boyish freedom from the restraints of imaginative logic, in the other every incident of the contest is explained and accounted for as rigidly as though it were matter of actual history. Of both ‘Guy Mannering’ and ‘Kidnapped’ the main action was suggested by the Annesley case, that marvellous romance of real life which, in ‘The Wandering Heir,’ not even Charles Reade could effectually vulgarize and spoil for future use. And no doubt it may be said that the true story of young Annesley is crowded with adventures more wonderful and exploits more incredible than those to be found in ‘Kidnapped.’ No doubt it may be said that in Balfour’s struggle with old Ebenezer there is nothing so improbable as the real struggle of Annesley with his wicked uncle, and that Annesley’s adventures in the plantations, the fight between the Iroquois girl and the slave-owner’s daughter for possession of the slave, Annesley’s escape from the Indian girl’s brothers, and his subsequent more astonishing escape from the gallows at Chester as an unconscious accomplice in an elopement, surpass in wonderfulness any of the chances, escapes, and disasters that befell Balfour. But the saying that “truth is stranger than fiction” has an artistic as well as a moral application. Fiction dares not be so strange as truth save in a boys’ story, where strangeness and exaggeration are, it seems, not only tolerated, but demanded. But after the fight in the round-house ‘Kidnapped’ passes, as we are going to show, into a new artistic phase—the phase of true art, where no exaggeration and no artistic insincerity can have a place.

Unlike Annesley and unlike young Ellangowan, Mr. Stevenson’s hero is not carried abroad after all, and here, perhaps, the book as a story attractive to boys will be found to fall behind ‘Treasure Island’ and ‘King Solomon’s Mines.’ What boys love above everything else is new scenery, and to baulk the expectation of the scenery of Wonderland aroused by the opening chapters of this story is exceedingly dangerous. Having tasted the delight of ‘Treasure Island’ and ‘King Solomon’s Mines,’ the boy reader who follows David Balfour’s adventures up to the point of his landing at Mull will most likely be disappointed at finding that he is not to be taken to the plantations. And yet, as has been just indicated, it is here where the story passes into literature. As a picture of the state of Scotland immediately after 1745 we do not hesitate to say that there is nothing in history and nothing in fiction equal to these remarkable chapters. It is not only as vivid as a word-picture by Carlyle; it is true and always true as a picture by Carlyle is false and always false. When the hero has left the ship and the kidnapping scheme is entirely frustrated, and not till then, we come upon such really vital, really organic work as Mr. Stevenson has never given us in his stories for adults, such as ‘Prince Otto,’ ‘The New Arabian Nights,’ and the striking novelette in the Court and Society Review called ‘Olalla.’ While the adventures in connexion with the wicked uncle, though unquestionably vigorous, are excogitated, the adventures in the Highlands are imagined, and this makes us think that it was merely in order to bring in these latter adventures that the somewhat stale business of the kidnapping was resorted to. For it should always be remembered in criticizing fiction that in the mind of every true storyteller the story passes through two stages—the stage when the group of situations is conceived or, as we say, ‘‘invented,” and the stage when they are really imagined, when the inventor’s mind has become as familiar with them as though he had actually lived in them. Not till it has reached the latter stage can imaginative work in any art become vital and, so to speak, organic. This is why the dramatic work of the novel of ingenious plot is almost always excogitated, while that of stories allowed to grow chapter by chapter, like the best of Scott’s, is imagined. This is why, in short, there is more imagination in a single page of ‘The Antiquary’ than in an entire story by Gaboriau. Scott, though a hasty writer, does not, as Gaboriau does, depict a scene because a mechanically constructed plot has forced him to do so, but because the scene—suggested to him originally by some local anecdote or by some chapter of history—has lain in his mind for so long a time that all the imaginative energy at his command is called up as soon as he begins to write about it. In other words the plot grows out of the scenes; the scenes do not grow out of the plot. Hence, in the deepest and truest sense, Scott, often called the most improvisatorial, is the least improvisatorial of writers.

‘Monte Cristo’ furnishes the most striking illustration of what we mean. Those portions of the romance which precede the working out of the revenge are imagined, while those portions which deal with the revenge are excogitated. Why? The latter portions were written first, before the story had taken root in the novelist’s imagination; the portions dealing with the imprisonment and the finding of the treasure were written after the story had taken root. Originally the narrative began with the adventures of the count in Italy, when he was plotting his revenge. The earlier portions of the work as we now have it were rapidly glanced at for working purposes by way of retrospective dialogue. But Maquet, in talking over the story with Dumas, suggested that by this method of structure the finest chances afforded by the plot were missed, and advised that the narrative should begin, not in Italy with the revenge, but in Marseilles, with the conspiracy, the imprisonment, and the finding of the treasure. Dumas acted upon this and found that, thanks to his previous work upon the materials, his imagination was now able to live in the situations, startling and romantic as they were, though as a rule the strength of Dumas lies in invention rather than in imagination. Now of ‘Kidnapped’ the Highland portions alone are imagined. Hence we cannot but think that for these portions the entire story, such as it is, was invented: a story which simply tells how a manly young hero of the old type struggles with an uncle-usurper of the old type, and after many adventures and hairbreadth escapes by sea and land—adventures and escapes having nothing to do with any proper peripeteia—comes into his own through the good offices of Providence and the conventional stage lawyer of the Latin-quoting type. In the Highland portions the imagination is of an exceedingly high and rare kind. The scenes are flashed not only upon the mental vision, but upon the actual senses of the reader. And even in the earlier chapters, where there is but little imagination: in this narrow sense, we come across single touches where there is imagination, but then it leaps up in a short, sudden, dazzling flame, as where the cry forced from the murderous uncle by superstitious terror is likened in sound to a sheep’s bleat.

In the perfect, the ideal story-teller imagination and invention would, of course, be found in equipoise. Until recent years the word ‘‘imagination” had a meaning so wide that it included both fancy and invention. Hence our remarks may not be generally intelligible. It seems strange that Coleridge was the earliest critic who gave that special meaning to the word ‘‘fancy” which it now owns. But even now invention and imagination are often confounded; critics are apt to use the two words as loosely as did the critics of the eighteenth century—as loosely, for instance, as did Alexander Pope in his remarks upon the invention in the Homeric poems. The truth is, however, as we have before pointed out when writing of Homer, that it is these very same Homeric poems which above everything else in literature afford striking examples of the deep distinction between the inventive and imaginative faculties, and it is certainly very singular that those wicked Homeric critics who in our own time represent the ancient chorizontes and arouse the wrath of Mr. Andrew Lang have never brought forward the strongest of all arguments in favour of the separate authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey—the argument that while the Odyssey shows a very wonderful power of primary invention, the Iliad shows almost none at all; and that while in the Odyssey imagination, though powerfully active, is always ready to yield to invention, in the Iliad the imaginative force is as unyielding to all demands of invention, whether primary or accessory, as Shakspeare’s [sic] own.

Perhaps, however, could we pursue the subject here, we should find the most remarkable instance of the difference between an imaginative and an inventive poet to be furnished by the cases of Shakspeare and Spenser. But we are concerned at the present moment with prose fiction alone, and Charlotte Brontë affords us an example of a writer in whom the imaginative faculty was very great, but whose inventive faculty scarcely existed at all. After ‘The Professor’ was rejected on account of deficiency of plot-interest she set to work to construct a plot of the sensational kind, and gave us the ugly old situation of a maniac hidden away in a country house. The entire plot showing how the Lowood governess narrowly escaped committing bigamy with her “master,” whose mad wife was secretly imprisoned at Fieldhead, was as poor and banal as that of any of those “shilling dreadfuls’’ that add to the horrors of the railway stations, and seem just now to threaten the very existence of prose fiction. And yet ‘Jane Eyre’ stands at the top of English romances for sheer imaginative strength. On the other hand, a writer like the author of ‘Called Back,’ while showing a very considerable power of invention, seems to have been absolutely without the imaginative faculty—that faculty which is seen at work in the story before us, and entitles it to the attention it is now receiving from us.

The humorous portions of ‘Kidnapped’ are of a very high order. The musical contest between Robin Oig and Alan Breck is to be ranked with the finest humorous scenes of Scott. Alan Breck is a great success, and the hero Davie Balfour really lives and breathes. That he is a landsman to the very marrow is well indicated by his mistaking a tidal islet for a real Robinson Crusoe island, but it is difficult to imagine the veriest land-lubber (p. 122), gazing at the sea from a lonely land, saying that it strikes the soul “with a kind of fear.” On the contrary, it is from a ghostly flat or a range of spectral cliffs that the sight of the sea seems to drive away the superstitious terrors conjured up by some landscapes. Amid superstitious dreads on the loneliest coast on the dimmest night a sense of companionship comes with the smell of sea-weed.

A very long, detailed and thoughtful review! Not all the thoughts are very sensible ones, but there’s certainly a lot of interesting material there. I think the reviewer’s opinions on children’s fiction are very silly; but the discussion of the difference between invention and imagination is interesting, and I think the reviewer is right in talking about the greater imaginative brilliance of the Highland parts of the story. And what a strange thing to say about the sea!

The case of James Annesley was and is generally supposed (but was never actually stated by Stevenson) to be an inspiration for the plot of Kidnapped; Wikipedia has more information on this.

The Civil & Military Gazette (Lahore), Thursday 19 August 1886

Acessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

Mr. R. L. Stevenson’s new book “Kidnapped” is of a very different order from “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” and is not likely to create the especial excitement which was caused by that extraordinary volume. This is more in the style of “Treasure Island,” a rousing book of adventure, which holds one spell bound to the end, but does not leave the strange thoughts which such a book as “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” awakes. The story is laid in the year 1751, and there is, as usual in narratives of this stamp, the inconvenient (and inconvenienced) heir who has been deprived of his estates by the wicked uncle. He starts for his own house, with a letter of introduction to his uncle, who turns out to be a miser execrated by the whole country side. His uncle promptly makes an attempt to get rid of him, which is foiled, and finally succeeds in getting him kidnapped for slavery in Carolina. After various adventures, including being wrecked on the coast of Mull, being suspected of murder and the consequent hue and cry throughout the Highlands, the wandering heir returns to claim his own. In all these adventures, the notorious Allen Breck Stewart [sic] and other Jacobites play a conspicuous part; so much so that Mr. Stevenson shows almost as much care in delineating the character of Allen, as in that of the hero David Balfour. Mr. Stevenson professes anachronism and writes avowedly for the school room on a winter evening. Needless to say that he has written a charming book for boys—and as usual, when he does this, everybody reads it. They are rewarded, for the book is a perfect series of word pictures, with a growing charm in them, and which one follows without trouble or effort.

Salisbury and Winchester Journal, Saturday 21 August 1886

Acessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

KIDNAPPED. By Robert Louis Stevenson. London: Cassell and Co.—Mr. Stevenson is a delightful writer. His prose is exquisite; indeed, there is no contemporary writer of fiction whose style is comparable with his in simplicity, clearness, and strength. To this mastery of language must be added the possession of a fine vein of humour—or perhaps dry quaintness would be a truer term—a fertile invention; and the faculty of arresting and keeping the attention and awakening our sympathies. He is never dull, rarely uninteresting; while there is a peculiar charm and freshness about his works that are characteristic and particularly pleasant. If we except “Robinson Crusoe,” there is no book of adventure in our literature which is better reading and has given more wholesome pleasure than “Treasure Island.” Its popularity has been unbounded, and it might well be wished that there were more books of its stamp in our circulating libraries. The tone of Mr. Stevenson’s stories is always pure and healthy; and the atmosphere one breathes in “Treasure Island” and “Kidnapped,” written ostensibly for boys, is bracing and manly. To be able to make a story in which there are no love scenes, thoroughly interesting to readers of all ages and both sexes, implies a triumph of skill. This is what Mr. Stevenson did in “Treasure Island,” and he has repeated the experiment with almost equal success in “Kidnapped.” The latter may not be quite so thrilling a story as its predecessor, but it is excellent and exciting reading from the first page almost to the last, and fills a volume which is no unworthy companion to “Treasure Island.” It would be wrong to suppose that because there is no love-making in these stories Mr. Stevenson lacks a sympathetic insight into female character. There is more than one skilful touch in “Kidnapped” that proves the contrary. The plot is laid in the time of the Jacobites, and without pretending in any way to write a historical romance, the author gives a vivid picture of the condition of the Scotch Highlands as they were after the so-called pacification of 1746. On the title page Mr. Stevenson summarises his tale as the “Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751: How he was Kidnapped and Cast away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; his Journey in the Wild Highlands; his Acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his Uncle Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so called.” To disclose any further details of the story would be partly to spoil the pleasure that awaits every reader of “Kidnapped,” of which the interest centres in the adventures of David Balfour and Alan Breck Stewart. Though Balfour is ostensibly the hero of the story, the reader is quite as keenly interested in the fate of Alan, and the characters of the two heroes are contrasted with skill and delightful humour. The weak point in Mr. Stevenson’s plot is the strange relations between Ebenezer Balfour and his brother, Alexander, the father of David. If not exactly clumsy the device by which the proper heir is dispossessed of his rights is unsatisfactory, and gives a touch of unreality to a story the other incidents of which are most real and natural. Mr. Stevenson has done nothing better than his descriptions of David’s narrow escape from death in the “House of Shaws,” of the desperate fight on board the brig “Covenant,” and of the sufferings endured by the Jacobite fugitives who “took to the heather.” To enumerate, however, half the good things in “Kidnapped” would take up more space than we can spare. Those who know the magic of Mr. Stevenson’s pen will need no urging to read his new story, while those who have never explored the mysteries of “Treasure Island” have now a double treat in store.

This reviewer agrees with the Pall Mall Gazette that the contrivance of Alexander and Ebenezer’s arrangement about Shaws is the book’s one ‘weak point’.

Congleton & Macclesfield Mercury, Saturday 28 August 1886

Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

[in an article titled ‘London Clubs and Society (from our own correspondent.)’]

I have been reading Mr. Louis Stevenson’s latest book, “Kidnapped.” It is a tale for boys, and not quite as good as the wonderful “Treasure Island”—the best boys’ book since “Robinson Crusoe”—but it is full of adventure and of those wonderfully life-like touches at which the writer’s hand is so cunning. There is a fight in it which breathes the very spirit of slaughter, and is as deadly a piece of literary work as was ever put on paper. It is one of the mysteries of Mr. Stevenson’s work that he—a confirmed invalid, they say—is never so happy as when he is telling a story of the wildest adventure, abounding in minute detail, which makes the scenes and characters literally move before our eyes. Take the dreadful pirates’ song in the “Treasure Island”—

“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest
Yo, ho, ho! and a bottle of rum!”

and then picture the men who sing it—John Silver, Ben Gunn, and Black Dog—all drawn to the life. As I said, there is nothing quite so good as this in “Kidnapped,” but the Highland adventures are excellent, and the character sketches are most original—reminding one of “Rob Roy,” and yet striking a note peculiar to Mr Stevenson. I recommend “Kidnapped” to all boys—young and old—as only not so good as “Treasure Island,” but as infinitely better than thousands of boys’ books which, I suppose, have a larger circulation.

The Dial, August 1886

Vol. 7 issue 76. Available here.

After his marked success in ‘‘Dr. Jekyll,” one looks with more than ordinary interest at the announcement of a new story by Robert Louis Stevenson. The scene of ‘‘Kidnapped” (Scribner) is laid in the Highlands of Scotland in 1751, amid the stirring times which followed the defeat of the Young Pretender at Culloden. The story is related by David Balfour, a lad of seventeen, who has been kidnapped and sent to sea by the order of his uncle, who desires to retain possession of an estate of which the boy is the rightful owner. The sufferings of the lad while on board the ‘‘Covenant,” the cruelties to which the captain and his mates subject all who are under them, the saving from a capsized boat of the Jacobite Alan Stewart, the bloody termination of a plot to rob and murder Stewart, in whose defence David renders such valiant help, and the shipwreck of the brig on the little island of Erraid, on the west coast of Scotland, are all portrayed with a vividness which cannot fail to fasten the reader’s attention. The dangers attending the presence of so violent a partisan as Stewart in that portion of the Highlands controlled by the hostile Campbells, are heightened by the tragic death of Colin Campbell, the ‘‘Red Fox.” The Jacobite and his young companion, David Balfour, being accused of the crime, are posted as outlaws and hunted by the royal troops. After severe hardships, and with many hairbreadth escapes, they reach, far up on Ben Alder, the hiding-place known in history as the ‘‘Cage,” where Cluny Macpherson lived for several years, and where he had sheltered from pursuit Prince Charlie himself. The book is filled with thrilling adventures, well told; and the reader, be he boy or man, will not willingly lay it aside until the last leaf is turned.

Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, Wednesday 8 September 1886

Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

Mr R. L. Stevenson has again made the world his debtor, for “Kidnapped” (Cassell & Co., Limited) is worthy of the pen that wrote “Treasure Island” and “The Dynamiter.” There is the same imaginative power, the same strokes of humour, the same skill in constructing characters that stand out in bold relief from an appropriate background, and the same vigorous, picturesque narrative that never allows the interest to flag. From the time that David Balfour bids good-bye to the minister of Essendean, all through the story of his danger in the house of Shaws, his conveyance on board the Covenant, the fight in the round house, the flight in the heather, and all the stirring history which brings us down to David’s recovery of his inheritance, there is not a dull page in the book. It is no mere question of exciting incident—other authors can match Mr Stevenson at that—but the infinite humour of Alan Breck, and the unfailing vraisemblance of the whole story, will of themselves suffice to win for “Kidnapped” a permanent place in English fiction. As a boy’s book it can have few rivals; but it is certain that most boys will miss the finer work which promises to make the work no less welcome to the parents than their children. “It sticks in our mind” that none of Mr Stevenson’s friends will be satisfied until the further adventures of Alan and of David have been offered to their notice. If we may but have them, we will consent to defer for a time the enjoyment of more “New Arabian Nights,” of which we have for some time had joyful anticipations.

Excuse me, ‘the’ pen that wrote The Dynamiter? This reviewer is forgetting someone!

Truth, Thursday 9 September 1886

Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

[part of an article titled ‘Letters on Books’, presented as a letter from writer Jessie Rayne to “My dear Daisy”]

The difference between an artful and an artistic style could not be better illustrated than by contrasting the laboured epigrams and images of this clever story [“The Wind of Destiny” by Arthur Sherbune Hardy] with the naïve and native directness of the narrative in “Kidnapped” (5), Mr. R. L. Stevenson’s latest and greatest triumph. Though nothing like so good a boy’s book as “Treasure Island,” it is incomparably superior to it and to everything else Mr. Stevenson has yet done in the amazing imaginative force of its conceptions and of its descriptions. Mr. Stevenson has the poetic second sight which sees and makes you see all that his imagination bodies forth as vividly as though you and he were not spectators merely, but actors, in the scenes he describes. You will, I know, think me guilty of wild exaggeration in saying that he is Defoe’s equal in narrative and Scott’s in portrayal of character; but read “Kidnapped” before you laugh at me.

One of the more original opinions on Treasure Island in this collection!

The Sunday School Times, 11 September 1886

Vol. 28 issue 37. Available here.

Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson is undoubtedly one of the brightest of the younger literary men of England [sic]. His Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of the strongest and truest books written for years,—a work of genius and a force for good. But Mr. Stevenson, though little more than thirty years old, has already put forth twelve books, which means that he has written a good deal of trash. This expressive noun may fairly characterize his story of Prince Otto, the next to the last of his rapidly appearing books. The latest, at the present date, is Kidnapped: being the memoirs of the adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751. It is a story of a nephew’s oppression at his uncle’s hands, and of his many wild and dangerous experiences. While not devoid of merit, it is too long for a sketch and too short—or, rather, too fragmentary—for a story claiming to be a book. Mr. Stevenson, of course, hints, in the closing pages, that it is to have a sequel or sequels. It is a pity that so able a writer is willing to do so much hasty work. (7½x5 inches, cloth, pp. xi, 824. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Price, $1.00.)

This has the distinction of being the only bad review in my entire collection! Credit to the writer for not being afraid to advance an unpopular opinion, I suppose.

The Scotsman, Monday 13 September 1886

Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

Mr Louis Stevenson’s story Kidnapped (5) is not so good as his story “Treasure Island.” It is a story for boys, and it is one that men also will read with great pleasure. It is a book which no other man than Mr Stevenson could produce, so great is its ability, so clear and beautiful is its style, so admirable the arrangement of the story. But it is not so good as “Treasure Island.” It may be said that comparisons are odious, and distinctly that is true in this case; for if “Treasure Island” had not been written, “Kidnapped” would have been declared the best book for boys that has been published in this century. It is a story of 1751, and tells of a lad called David Balfour, who has been brought up on the Yarrow, but who has reason to believe that he is heir to an estate situated near to South Queensferry. He goes there and finds an old uncle, who resents his coming, and had him kidnapped on board a brig, which sails away with him for Virginia. She never gets there; she is wrecked on Mull; and the book then tells of his adventures in crossing Mull to the mainland, until he gets back again to Queensferry. He makes the acquaintance of Alan Breck, and is present at the shooting of Red Colin. He has hairbreadth escapes in crossing the Moor of Rannoch; and on Ben Alder he finds himself in Cluny’s nest. But it would be absurd to attempt to describe with any minuteness the plot and detail of the story. It is equally of little value to attempt to indicate whence arise the power and fascination that Mr Stevenson exercises over his readers. But this may be said, that there are two or three scenes in the book—that, for instance, with the blind Catechist in Mull, that in The Cluny’s nest, and that in the Braes of Balquidder, when there comes a contest with the bagpipes between Robin Oig and Alan Breck—which are, so far as we know, almost without equal in the fictional literature of to-day. It is an admirable story; and while there must be regret when it comes to a close, the last sentence or two bring consolation in the suggestion that we may hear more of the doings of the heroes in future.

(5) Kidnapped; being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751. By Robert Louis Stevenson. London: Cassell & Company.

I like the comment, in this relatively short review, that ‘it would be absurd to attempt’ what some of the other reviews certainly do at much greater length!

John o’ Groat Journal, Wednesday 22 September 1886

Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

KIDNAPPED. By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. London Cassell & Company.

Of works of fiction in these days there is no stint, but if they were all as excellent as the one now before us, we should be less inclined to grumble at their number. To boys’ stories a certain amount of interest attaches, for they are the nurseries of the great minds that are to be; and perhaps it is on this account that so much talent is devoted to their composition. What boy has not gloated over the pages of Robinson Crusoe? Even grown-up men remember with delight the enthusiasm evoked and the hours that were lightened by this absorbing tale. The author of “Treasure Island” has earned the gratitude of the boys of our own generation for that fascinating work, no less than Defoe did of the boys of his, and now he treads in the footsteps of another great master, for he has produced something of finer fibre and wider interest than a mere boy’s story—a composition which, for vigour of imagination and admirable delineation, may be placed alongside some of the creations of Scott. There is not, indeed, the same lavishness in the display of character, but it will be long before anyone can equal Scott’s broad and skilful handling of the humorous and distinctive features of Scottish life, which his command of an almost inexhaustible fund of antique lore enabled him to adorn with so many picturesque details. The vein of original but weird conception which Mr Stevenson had lately developed in “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll,” and which, if we could disregard it [sic] deep moral truth, might seem, in its hideousness, to be the fevered product of a distempered brain, he has cast aside as an uneasy dream. He has plunged us into the midst of the free, stirring life of the Highlands in the troublous years succeeding the “’45,” when the country was scoured far and wide by royal troops, and loyalty to Prince Charlie meant death or exile. He has successfully imitated the style of Defoe, bestowing minute attention upon significant details, and thus throwing a feeling of reality around the tale. The narrative is simple but catching; the dialogues are sparkling and telling, while the use of an expressive Scotch dialect lends a racy flavour and a homely vigour to the whole.

The author has seized upon two striking incidents which the unfortunate issue of “’45” brought in its train, and has woven them ingeniously into the thread of his narrative. The skulking of Cluny in his cave on Ben Alder, baffling the keen search for him, is highly creditable to the Highland character, exhibiting as it does, the chief’s confidence in his clansmen, and their devotion to him. On the other incident, the death of Campbell of Glenure, important events of the story indirectly turn. James Stewart tried [sic] in 1752, before a jury which contained fifteen of his enemies the Campbells, for being art and part in the murder, laid to the charge of his kinsman Aleck Breck [sic], was condemned to be hanged in chains near the spot where the deed was done. Besides the anomaly of condemning a man as accessory to a deed which was never brought home to the principal criminal, Stewart was convicted on evidence that was only presumptive and which, before an impartial jury was far from likely to have been taken as amounting to proof. Of David Balfour’s part in these events, history has left no record, but now that Mr Stevenson has told it so well, who shall say that history is not the loser for the omission. This same David Balfour, the hero, is launched on the world almost without a friend, and all but repulsed from his uncle’s door. He is treacherously shipped off by him to be sold as a slave in the Carolinas, but suffers shipwreck off the coast of Mull. The suspicion and cunning of the miserly uncle, the desolate squalor of his abode and the vivid lightning scene in the tower, are effectively depicted. Though the incidents of the voyage are much of the ordinary buccaneering type, they are told with graphic and vigorous power, especially the unequal fight in the Round House. But after these adventures, the author tries a stronger flight, and in the succeeding parts, the story rises to a higher level both of description and incident. Here striking types of Scottish character are developed, and, ever and anon, brilliant scenes, which merit a permanent place in literature, are flashed before the imagination. What a picture, for instance, is that of the two fugitives “bristling” [sic] the whole day on the rock “like scones on a girdle.” After reaching the mainland, having become implicated in the murder of Glenure, “the red fox,” David is compelled to take to the heather with Aleck Breck. The pair make their way, pursued by the royal soldiers, and sometimes overshadowed by the black spirit of anger, through Glencoe, Balquidder, and other parts of central Scotland, until {at last, worn out by overmastering fatigue, they reach Queensferry, where, by a stratagem, they succeed in passing the Forth. David is conditionally restored to his patrimony and Alan finds shipping for France.

During their wanderings, much is made of the play of character brought out by the contrast between the} two principal actors of the piece, and human interest is added to their toilsome flight through the romantic scenes of the Highlands by the fire of passion struck out from these two dissimilar spirits. The varied qualities in the Highland character, with its union of nobility and pettiness, are displayed to advantage in {Alan Breck. Vain of his person, proud of his own prowess and that of his ancestors, fiery and quick to take offence, he is yet true-hearted, loyal to his chief,} and brave and skilful in fight. Standing out in sharp relief to this portraiture is the strict, matter-of-fact, whiggish, if somewhat sullen, nature of David Balfour, who, though generally averse to fighting and slow to anger, is yet brave enough when his reason is satisfied of the occasion. The sly evasiveness of the dialogue during the quarrel in the wood, shows the author at his best, unless, indeed, it is equalled by the characteristic scene of the bagpipe contest with Robin Oig Macgregor, where the two fierce Highlanders are only to be deterred from crossing their swords in mortal combat, by the prospect of exhibiting each his skill as a piper. Their savage breasts, at one moment burning with deadly hate, are, the next, soothed and pacified by the gentle influence of the grace notes of the bagpipes. The interest of the story is well sustained throughout, and in view of Mr Stevenson’s own declaration that he would gladly spend more of his time in the company of his two heroes, we can only hope that a favourable reception will induce him to give a fitting continuation to what promises to be a very successful romance.

The scanned text of this one is partially obscured in a couple of places, indicated by curly brackets; I’ve done my best to make out the words, but these parts may contain errors. However, Alan’s name is certainly given correctly in the later part of the review, despite the entertaining renaming earlier on.

American Magazine, September 1886

Vol. 4 issue 6. Available here.

MR. STEVENSON’S “KIDNAPPED.”

After giving the world in “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” a story that will probably not be excelled for some time to come in English literature as one of the most remarkable of psychological romances, Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson treats us in ‘‘Kidnapped” to a repetition of that fine literary work which he displayed in his ‘‘Treasure Island.’’ The character of his latest tale is fully indicated in the sub-title: “Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751; How He was Kidnapped and Cast Away; His Sufferings in a Desert Isle; His Journey in the Wild Highlands; His Acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and Other Notorious Highland Jacobites. With all that he suffered at the hands of his uncle, Ebenezer Balfour, of Shaws, falsely so-called. Written by himself, and now set forth by Robert Louis Stevenson.’’ The daring experiment indicated in the last sentence has been most successfully carried out, and the reader marvels at the close of the story that he has found no trace of the author, who has been entirely lost sight of in the person of David Balfour. This was no easy thing to accomplish, but Mr. Stevenson has won a complete triumph, and apparently without the slightest effort. It is particularly in this that we find the great storyteller. No one will read ‘‘Kidnapped’’ without the “Robinson Crusoe’’ of Defoe being continually suggested, and yet every incident and situation is distinctly Mr. Stevenson’s own. In the minute attention to detail, one suspects the author of being a close student of Defoe, yet in another instant such a suspicion is dispelled when his wonderful power of description is encountered. This is not Defoe, the reader thinks; it is Stevenson. And in this the reader is right. Accuse the author of “Kidnapped’’ of imitating Defoe, and one might as reasonably accuse him of following in the footsteps of Thackeray’s ‘‘Henry Esmond,’’ because he chooses to reproduce a picture of the life and people of a by-gone age. Likewise might his imagination be classed as only copying after that of Sir Walter Scott. These points in Mr. Stevenson’s literary capacity are not the fruits of plagiarism; they are his own, and his use of them is both brilliant and clever. It makes but little difference whether we are with the author on the North Sea, whether on the top of the Scottish highlands, or whether reclining in the green fields, or shipwrecked on a barren island, the irresistible charm of his manner never leaves us. The fascination of his chaste language, his engaging descriptions, are with us from the beginning of the story until with a feeling of regret we reach its conclusion. Although Mr. Stevenson chooses to class his ‘‘Kidnapped” as reading for boys in the ‘‘winter evening schoolroom, when the tasks are over and the hour for bed draws near,’’ and endeavors to assure the reader that it is ‘‘no furniture for the scholar’s library,’’ the story will find acceptance in the hands of the old as well as the young, and be eagerly read and enjoyed wherever the English language is spoken. Published by Charles Scribner’s Sons.

I especially like that this one points out Stevenson’s skill at first-person narration; the dissimilarity of the narrative voice in Kidnapped to Stevenson’s other books really is remarkable (and I think in Kidnapped it’s way more engaging and enjoyable than the rest).

The Church Review, September 1886

Vol. 48 issue 64. Available here.

Even the title of one of Mr. Stevenson’s books often sounds a truer note of originality than our best listening can catch from whole volumes by many other men; and when we turn from the title to the pages of such a book as Kidnapped,* we shall be very hard of hearing indeed if we do not detect the ring of the most genuine individuality which is applying itself to the production of literature in our day. We know that it is customary to award fame chiefly to the dead, and to put off the living with, at best, a good notoriety. But Mr. Stevenson is one who deserves to be canonised living, whose work is not only dear to a present vogue, but bears marks which will force reluctant Father Time to take it along under his arm for the pleasure of other days than ours.

Mr. Stevenson is not only extraordinarily original, but his originality takes many forms, and apparently abhors a rut. We have no sooner classified him as a romancer than he turns up as a delightful verse-writer: we have scarcely pinned him up in our literary museum among the tellers of tales, than he flaps his wings and is off, pin and all, to join the travellers or the literary critics over in the other corner of the museum. He is equally good, strange to say, in every capacity, and this we think one of the most prominent of those marks which will force his work upon the courteous attention of Father Time. If we add that he is sincere, direct, and hearty in all that he does; that he addresses himself to his labors with the conscientiousness of the artist, and accomplishes them with the ease, grace, and skill that appertain only to the most consummate talent; that he writes English strong in its homely, nervous vigor, its lucid beauty, its courageous faithfulness to the simple, elder forms of speech; if we add these considerations, and remember besides that his art is guided always by a pure and right-minded manliness, it must at least be granted that Mr. Stevenson offers credentials entitling him to rank among the foremost of contemporary writers, whatever may be thought of his claims upon the future.

Kidnapped is as straightforward a tale as ever was told, not excepting Robinson Crusoe, to which it has been compared. As we follow, with the breathless interest of childhood, this story of adventure by land and sea,—without the interest of love, with scarce so much as a woman in it, indeed; appealing to us by none of the means through which the novel is wont to address us; enchaining and fascinating us by the simple force of the world-old love for an out-and-out story,—we have a strong feeling that if in truth “the stories are all told,” some of them will bear re-telling by such a master of the story-telling art as Mr. Stevenson. In fact, while the spell is on us, like children, we could not be so readily engaged by any new tale as by the same story over again. We can admit, and even urge that, in comparison with the modern novel, which we have so developed as to make infinitely the most effective means of setting forth and interpreting life, such an achievement as Kidnapped is not the most serious thing in the world; but we are not disposed to enjoy it the less on that account. We have in it such a story as it would seem that any one might plan,—a story which Mr. Stevenson found in part planned for him by history: a tale spun of the simplest, the tritest material. The magician at the loom knows how to weave his common flax into the purple and fine linen of literature, however; and the simplicity of the material makes for strength in the fabric. To perceive what the writer of Kidnapped has accomplished we have only to fancy the bare and uninspiring scheme of the story given into the hands of any one else; only so shall we understand how uncommon is the art which can vitalise this plain and homely narrative of adventure for a generation of readers whose interest is habitually sought through the medium of the subtle, complicated, many-sided novel that we make nowadays.

Simplicity of spirit and the unconsciousness of manner which goes with it are qualities which an author must possess if he would be even tolerable in the field which Mr. Stevenson has chosen for himself in Kidnapped; so much may be regarded as an elementary part of his equipment, and we have already got beyond the range of all but a very few contemporary writers of fiction. Put, in addition, there are several faculties which the successful worker in this field must have in store: they are not unusual, one might say, for they are only such as a child, without thought, demands in his authors. The first thing which a child asks of a story is, no doubt, that it shall be natural; interesting of course it must be, but its interest rests upon its naturalness. A child resents nothing so much as stiltedness or woodenness of character; he would have his friends among story-people, above all, warm-blooded creatures, accustomed to breathe his sort of air. Then, especially, they must be persons of strong and simple feelings; a healthy child has no more interest in the analysis of character under new and strange conditions than he has in conning the subjunctive mood of his French verbs. A writer who would please children must have besides, or perhaps more than all, a fashion of narration at once swift, clear, and easy, coupled with an honest, homespun style, and must be able to set forth his tale by a truly pictorial method. Kidnapped not only completely meets these requirements, but, if there were not another achievement of its kind in existence, we should know, as we sometimes know a photograph to be a good likeness without acquaintance with the original, that the story was told as such a story should be told. Who can resist the convincing truthfulness of its manner, its unhalting energy of movement, the virile, genuine feeling at the bottom of all its characters, its plain telling, its picturesque richness of coloring? Not a child, certainly; and if not a child, why then not the child’s parent, for in this case the child is indeed the father of the man. Kidnapped could not have been written solely for the young, but, being such a work as it is, if the young could not find pleasure in it, their elders could not; and we have tested the book by what a child asks of his books because it addresses itself to the child in us all, not merely by virtue of appealing to the youthful craving for a story, but by reason of its simple, unmodern treatment of natural, elementary emotions. We believe that Mr. Stevenson must have drunk deep of the profound significance of the injunction, “Except ye become as little children,” before putting pen to the composition of Kidnapped: the story, as we read it, could have been the fruit only of a perception of the intimate spiritual fellowship between the simple-mindedness of childhood and the manliness of manhood. It is a wonderful and a heart-moving tale, put it how one will; and any one who can read the scene of the fight in the round-house, on board the brig Covenant, or the scene of the quarrel betwixt that right good, vain, brave, whimsical, excellent creature, Alan Breck Stewart, and that truest of true fellows, David Balfour, unstirred by real feeling, is not worthy to read such a sweet, wholesome, honest story as Kidnapped.

*Kidnapped; being the Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751: written by himself, and now set forth by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Interesting thoughts on Stevenson’s style and skill, and I like that this reviewer singles out the quarrel as a particularly ‘wonderful and heart-moving’ scene.

Good Housekeeping, 2 October 1886

Vol. 3 issue 11. Available here.

KIDNAPPED.

“Kidnapped” is the title of the “Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751.” This story is written in the autobiographical form, and the writer, Robert Louis Stevenson, has successfully accomplished the difficult task of transporting himself to the middle of the last century, and never for a moment allowing the modes of thought or ideas of the present century to intrude themselves. The hero, David Balfour, is a Scotch youth, brought up among the people of the Lowlands. On coming of age he sets out in the world for himself, first seeking his uncle, who has defrauded David’s father of his heritage. The uncle seeks to murder David; unsuccessful in this, he contrives to have him kidnapped by the skipper of a brig, who is in his pay. The brig is borne out of her course and eventually cast away on the West Coast of the Highlands of Scotland. He falls in with Alan Breck Stewart, a notorious Highland Jacobite, and partly with him, partly alone, he makes his way back on foot to his native heath, through a wild country, overrun by soldiery employed to keep in awe the Highland clans, who are still devoted to the fallen House of Stuart. Interwoven with the story is a graphic account of the life of these clans, and the whole is told in so realistic, matter of fact a manner that it is hard to believe that the story was not written at the time the events are supposed to have occurred. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Price $1.

After all the reviewers talking about how wholesomely manly the book is and recommending it for boys of all ages, it’s interesting to find a review in a women’s magazine! Perhaps it was thought appropriate to aim a review of a children’s book at mothers, though the other books reviewed on the same page are not obviously children’s books.

Lyttelton Times, 18 October 1886

Available here.

We have received from Messrs Cassell and Co.—through Mr Fountain Barber and Messrs Simpson and Williams—copies of two remarkable romances. Mr Robert Louis Stevenson, already so widely known as the author of the “Dynamiter,” the “New Arabian Nights,” and “Treasure Island,” has made a fresh bid for popularity with “Kidnapped.” The work is something between an historical novel and a tale of adventure, à la Captain Mayne Reid. But in point of style and imagination it leaves the gallant Captain a long way behind. It has been called a book for boys; but it is a book which men, we fancy, should like quite as well as boys, and which some men might like better than some boys. Its scene is laid in the Scotch Highlands, in the years succeeding the battle of Culloden. This has caused some critics to compare “Kidnapped” with “Waverley.” It is, perhaps, unfair, to compare a frigate to a line-of-battleship—a simile which fairly illustrates the difference between the two books. Mr Stevenson’s style is more delicate, if less vigorous; we prefer his landscapes even to Scott’s, and think his characters more subtle, if less bold. In the vigour of his action he comes as near the great master as in the matter of plot he falls behind him. Sir Walter’s humour and pathos are not approached in “Kidnapped,” which, however, will amuse and interest nineteen out of twenty readers by the rare qualities which separate Mr Stevenson’s from the common run of tales.

Catholic World, October 1886

Vol. 44 number 259. Available here.

Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson has taken advantage of the popularity he has acquired, by writing book after book in rapid succession, each better than the other. His Kidnapped (Cassell & Co., limited) is a De-Foe-like narrative of the adventures of a Scotch youth, David Balfour, who was kidnapped and cast away, who suffered on a desert isle, lived among Jacobites in the Highlands, and who begins another series of adventures at the end of the book. The characteristics of this story are manliness and an exact comprehension of the Highland character. The dialogue between David Balfour, a Presbyterian, and Alan Stewart, whose conceptions of Christianity may be described as “Highland,” shows a keen perception of the motives of that strange people, whose fidelity and bravery are proverbial:

[quote from the novel, from “Troth and indeed!” said Alan... to “...a lad and a gun behind a heather bush.”]

The Highlands were in process of conversion, however, by various catechists sent from Edinburgh, some also appointed by local dignitaries. One of these was accused of highway robberies. And of him another catechist says:

[quote from the novel, from “It was MacLean of Duart gave it...” to “...I think shame to mind it.”]

Kidnapped is a novel without a love-story running through it, and it is the more to be commended for that. The old Germans held that there was a great deal to be done in life by their young men before they should “turn to thoughts of love,” and David Balfour is an exemplification of this opinion, for which modern society would be better and more manly. Kidnapped is decidedly the most popular novel of the month.

Naturally a Catholic publication focusses especially on the religious aspects of the book. And the lack of heterosexual romance (of course it’s not true that the book has no ‘love-story’) is commendable and makes the book ‘more manly’! Quite right, although they might not like my reasons for agreeing with them.

The Electric Magazine of Foreign Literature, October 1886

Vol. 44 issue 4. Available here.

Among the authors who have swiftly come to the front during the last few years is Robert Louis Stevenson, who has brought a distinctly new and fresh individuality into the fiction of the day. The first book which made him talked about as a man of promise was his “Donkey Ride in the Cevennes,” which gave a vivid and picturesque account of adventures in the French Highlands, made historically interesting by the heroic defence of the mountaineers, who had adopted Protestantism against Catholic persecution. Then came, a few years afterward, his ever delightful “Treasure Island,” which is equal in its way to “Robinson Crusoe.” Indeed, the imagination displayed by the author in that inimitable book in many respects surpasses that of the immortal author of “Robinson Crusoe.” The new “Arabian Nights” was another charming contribution to the public pleasure, and then “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” illustrated the author’s creative power in a new field not less unique than that of the preceding efforts. Stevenson’s latest book, “Kidnapped,” has the wild, fresh flavor which we associate with his books, and though less symmetrical and well-jointed than some of them, it is well fitted to keep his reputation up to the mark of popular admiration as well as critical approval.

The novel appears to have been suggested by a celebrated trial in Scotland which Sir Walter Scott tells us gave him the first notion of “Guy Mannering,” and which also contributed the germ of Charles Reade’s “Wandering Heir.” But the main incidents of the story get their interest from totally fresh material, and it is treated in a manner purely Stevensonian. The author has divested his conception and language entirely from the flavor and conditions of our own times, and the language, color, and modes of expression of the last century are happily produced. Mr. Stevenson is peculiarly happy in this kind of imaginative work, and to his power in this way is due his verisimilitude. The adventures narrated engage the reader’s interest with great fascination, and though sometimes they are strung together without any effort or apparent bearing with each other, they are none the less entertaining.

The story is laid in the middle of the eighteenth century in the Scottish Highlands, and relates the adventures and sufferings of David Balfour, who is by the order of his cruel uncle, who had robbed him of the family estate, kidnapped and sold into slavery for the Carolinas. It is, of course, known to all our readers that white slavery existed all through the colonies at this period, and that this nefarious system was made the agency for the most heartless and unnatural crimes by those in the mother country who wished to rid themselves of others inconvenient to them. The ship is wrecked on the Northern Scottish coast, and then the real adventures of the hero among the wild people of the Highlands begin. This part of Scotland had not become settled since the upheaval of the Jacobite insurrection of Charles Edward, and the whole region was full of wandering adherents of the Stuart prince, living in dangerous exile, and in perpetual fear of capture. One of these, a daring, quarrelsome desperado named Alan Breck, is David Balfour’s travelling companion, and the ill-assorted pair meet adventures of the most exciting kind by field and flood. We shall not spoil the interest of our readers by giving any description of them, except to say that they are of the most thrilling kind. Alan Breck was a genuine historical character, as much as was Rob Roy, one of whose sons, by the way, takes a casual part in the story. Mr. Stevenson shows great skill in the individualisation of his characters. Even those who do not bear any highly important part in the narrative are dashed off in a bold, incisive way, which make them stand out from the page like portraits done in black and white. David Balfour finally returns from his wanderings, and punishes his guilty uncle, to whose ill-gotten estate he becomes the heir, so that the story ends in a way to please the traditional novel-reader. But it is not this feature of the story, or even the kidnapping, which lends the motive of interest. It is the delineation of a most picturesque and romantic period and region of Scotland, and the hero’s wanderings among the half-savage Highlanders, which give the peculiar quality to the book. As is the case with all of Stevenson’s fiction, with the possible exception of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” boys and grown folk will be equally interested in this delightful book.

Further agreement that the Highland portions of the book are its best and most memorable, and I also like the praise for Stevenson’s skill with minor characters.

The Nation, 11 November 1886

Vol. 43 issue 1,115. Available here.

Mr. Stevenson has never appeared to greater advantage than in ‘Kidnapped.’ It is finer work than the famous ‘Dr. Jekyll,’ for, besides being a more successful example of literary art, it has the charm of personal enthusiasm, the strength of natural aptitude. No better book of its kind than these ‘Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour’ has ever been written. The kind is no inferior one, for it is an excellent thing to fire a boy’s blood with illustration of courage and loyalty and self-sacrifice for an idea, and to demoralize well-regulated pulses while Alan Breck and Davie are flying over the heather, before King George’s men. The movement never flags, yet there is no appearance of haste, and, except in the defence of the roundhouse of the brig Covenant, nothing like the unwholesome bloodthirstiness which distinguishes many popular tales of adventure. The reader instantly identifies himself with Davie in his early disenchantment by his great relation, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, in his woes on board the Covenant; but when Alan Breck appears, interest is divided, or rather irresistibly extended. After the shooting of Colin Roy Campbell of Glenmure [sic], when the two queerly assorted comrades decide to dodge the redcoats, the vicissitudes become exciting. Their general tenor is best described in Alan’s words to Davie before the start:

[quote from the novel, from “But, mind you, it’s no small thing...” to “...Either take to the heather with me, or else hang.”]

Like all the Highlanders in moments of excitement induced by the exigencies of patriotism, Alan’s diction becomes more poetical than accurate. And one particular charm of this story, though the boys may not know it, is the author’s appropriate use of Scotch phrasing—not dialect, but national turns of speech which express Scotch character and feeling as plain English never could. Mr. Stevenson confesses in a note his own great kindness for Alan and Davie, and half promises to tell what further befell them after their parting in Edinburgh—a promise which the friends they have already made must long to see fulfilled.

Queerly assorted comrades indeed! I like the praise for Stevenson’s ‘Scotch phrasing’ and I love the phrase ‘to demoralize well-regulated pulses’. Interestingly, the next review on this page is of one of Margaret Oliphant’s novels (Effie Ogilvie), and notes that ‘a similar quality [to Kidnapped] is its chief attraction’.

Aberdeen Free Press, Tuesday 7 December 1886

Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

“KIDNAPPED.” By R. Louis Stevenson.—Like all Mr Stevenson’s work, Kidnapped is characterised by deliberate and careful manufacture throughout. It appeals to the perennial interest of boys in adventure by sea and by land. The troubles of the young hero just before and after shipwreck, especially during the fighting on board and the bewilderment of lostness from the moment of his reaching land to his setting out on his overland journey, are presented in masterly realistic fashion, and in general conception are all but worthy of Defoe. The denoument on the ship and the overland scramble brings into the foreground a strange character, the hero’s companion and friend, Allan Breck [sic], a striking study of a political go-between Highlander of Jacobite times. It is not probable that “Kidnapped” will be accepted by boys as anything like the equal of “Treasure Island” —there is no Long John Silver here—but for all that, it must take foremost place in the ranks of literature of its kind. Mr Stevenson, we hope, will be induced to proceed with the continuation of the story, which he more than half promises.

Notices, advertisements and other short commentary

Publishers’ Weekly, 24 July 1886

Vol. 30 issue 4. Available here.

Stevenson, Rob. L: Kidnapped; being memoirs of the adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751; written by himself. N. Y., C: Scribner’s Sons, 1886. 10+324 p. map., D. cl., $1.

The book, according to the sub-title, tells ‘‘How he (David Balfour) was kidnapped and cast away; his sufferings in a desert isle; his journey in the Wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites, with all that he suffered at the hands of his uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so called.” As may be judged, the book is one wholly of adventure, leaving off while the hero is still not much more than a boy. The style is very quaint and amusing. Scene laid in Scotland.

The Atlanta Constitution, 4 August 1886

Vol. 18. Available here.

[in the section headed ‘BRIEFS ABOUT BOOKS.’]

“Kidnapped,” by Robert Louis Stevenson, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, comes to us through S. P. Richards & Son. It is a story of the adventures of David Balfour, showing how he was kidnapped and cast away, with an account of his sufferings on a desert isle, his journey in the wild highlands, his successful fight for a fortune, etc. There is hardly a woman in the book, and there is no hint of a courtship or a marriage, but for all that it is one of the most thrilling stories in print. Young readers will go wild over it, and the older ones are not likely to lay it down until they read it through.

Zion’s Herald, 4 August 1886

Vol. 63 issue 31. Available here.

KIDNAPPED; Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751, written by himself, and now set forth by Robert Louis Stevenson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 12mo, $1.00. This is a very bright story told with many of the characteristics of Defoe, and with equal fascination in its realistic simplicity of style. But it has a thousand-fold more incidents than the lone island inhabitant, and holds its reader with a firm grasp through its various fortunes and misadventures to the last. The book is meeting with a wide patronage, calling for new editions to be rapidly issued.

Life, 12 August 1886

Vol. 8 issue 189. Available here.

In “Kidnapped” (Scribner’s) the multitude who read for simple amusement will find it in rich, healthful abundance. Here is a story without a particle of love or sentiment in it, but it warms the heart, stirs the pulses, and invigorates even a wearied reader. It is a tale of adventure as realistic as a book of exploration, and one is inclined to think more accurate and natural than most of them. Its hero is certainly unconscious of his heroism.

And then, to get back again to those days of Scotch romance, when Campbells and Stewarts were at swords’ points, and physical prowess was the greater part of nobility! Why, it is as energizing as a boat race.

Journal of Education, 19 August 1886

Vol. 24 issue 581. Available here.

“KIDNAPPED: Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: How he was Kidnapped and Cast away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; his Journey in the Wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he Suffered at the hands of his Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called,” is the title of the new book, by Robert Louis Stevenson, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons. If it is a long one, it has the advantage of telling exactly what manner of story it is, and it only need be said that all the promises it conveys of stirring adventure are more than redeemed.

The School Journal, 28 August 1886

Vol. 32 issue 7. Available here.

KIDNAPPED. Being Memoirs and Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751. Written by himself, and now set forth by Robert Louis Stevenson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. $1.00.

A fine, bold, strong young fellow was David Balfour, a true Scotchman in disposition; and though he started on his adventures nearly a penniless orphan, he was better able than most men to take care of himself. The book tells, to quote from the title-page, “How he was kidnapped and cast away; his sufferings in a desert isle; his journey in the wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Allan [sic] Breck Stewart, and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called.”

Here, indeed, is a promising outline, but it is only a faint forecasting of the delightful story, the charm of which one can hardly find words to express. It will take its place beside Robinson Crusoe in every boy’s heart that reads it—every boy, young or old, for that matter—and will do its part towards sustaining the already high reputation of the author. Don’t fail to get it for your boy and—yourself.

The Overland Monthly, September 1886

Vol. 8 issue 45. Available here.

Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson has lately published two romances, Prince Otto and Kidnapped. They are pure romances, intended only to excite and entertain... [discussion of Prince Otto] The contents of Kidnapped are well enough foreshadowed by the subtitle: “Being memoirs of the adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751; how he was Kidnapped and cast away: his sufferings in a Desert Isle; his journey in the wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Allan [sic] Breck Stewart, and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his Uncle, Ebenezer Balfour, of Shaws, falsely so called.” It is, in fact, as gentlemanly and entertaining a book of adventure as could well be written, and is intended, perhaps, particularly for boys. It is worth notice, in passing, that Mr. Stevenson, or his publishers, decline to be led into the unpleasant dictionary spelling, “kidnaped.”

[details of Prince Otto]

Kidnapped. By Robert Louis Stevenson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1886.

I’d never heard of that ‘dictionary spelling’! Perhaps it was along the same lines as American English spelling ‘traveled’ and similar words with only one L? According to Google Books’s Ngram Viewer it was very uncommon at the time this review was published, and peaked at about half the frequency of ‘kidnapped’ in the 1930s, so there you go.

Education, October 1886

Vol. 7 issue 2. Available here.

David Balfour is a lad who has come to stay. Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson has a talent for straightforward narrative, and this story of the eighteenth century is as simple and delightful and irresistible as any classic of youth which has won a permanent place on the library shelves apportioned to the juvenile members of the family. But Kidnapped is more than simply a juvenile book, and its hero, David, is by no means an ordinary character. His bearing in his adventures shows him to be a creature of no common mould, and the dramatic interest of the scenes in which he figures will not soon be forgotten by one who reads his history.

The Daily Telegraph (Napier, New Zealand), 7 June 1887

Available here.

Mr R. L. Stevenson’s last work “Kidnapped, being the memoirs of the adventures of David Balfour, in the year 1751,” is a charming tale of a troublous period in the history of the Highlands of Scotland. It places before the reader a vivid picture of the shifts to which proscribed persons had to undergo to avoid capture by the king’s troops; the fidelity of the clans to their chiefs; and the touching affection created between persons of dissimilar character tied together by the bonds of a common political trouble. The story only runs over a period of four months; time enough for the kidnapping of a lad on board a brig, the wreck off the Island of Mull, and for the weary tramp across the mountains and the moors of Scotland. “Kidnapped” will please all classes of readers, and here and there are touches of character that will throw Scotchmen into ecstasies.

Advertisement, various publications

NOW READY:
Mr. Stevenson's New Book,
KIDNAPPED;
Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751.
How he was Kidnapped and Cast Away; his Sufferings in a Desert Isle; his Journey in the Wild Highlands; his Acquaintance with ALAN BRECK STEWART and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he Suffered at the hands of his Uncle, EBENEZER BALFOUR OF SHAWS, falsely so called.
By Robert Louis Stevenson.

1 Vol., 12mo, cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents.

If “all mankind love a lover,” all boys (of from twelve to sixty) love almost as much a boy-hero of the type of Davie Balfour in Mr. Stevenson’s book. To be “Kidnapped and Cast Away” and to “Suffer on a Desert Isle” are both of them things that promise the best kind of a story; but we know in advance that David’s adventures afterward bring him among wild Highland clansmen and Jacobite refugees, and that Mr. Stevenson can tell these experiences both by sea and land like nobody else since the author of Robinson Crusoe.

Crowded with action and daring, with wild mountain life, and pluck and loyalty of the good unquestioning kind, Davie’s relation is as manly as it is stirring. Mr. Stevenson draws his villainous kidnappers, his rough sailors, and Highlanders with that wonderful vividness and truth that makes everything he touches so real; but the air of his book is as healthy and fresh as the Highland air itself; and false-flavored sensationalism of the later sort cannot live in it.

Evidently a standard advert, probably provided by the publisher. Appears in The Nation, 1 July 1886, vol. 43 issue 1,096, here; The Publishers’ Weekly, 3 July 1886, here; Book News, August 1886, vol. 4 issue 48, here; and other places.

Advertisement, various publications

Mr. R. L. Stevenson’s new book, “Kidnapped,” is not, we think, nearly so exciting or entrancing as was his “Treasure Island.” Still, the “Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: how he was kidnapped and cast away: his sufferings on a desert isle; his journey in the wild highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called,” form a story which will be read with pleasure by boys of all ages. It is written with all Mr. Stevenson’s inimitable charm of style and language.

Another standard advert, this one appearing in the Nottingham Journal of Thursday 22 July 1886 and the Stroud Journal for Saturday 24 July 1886 (both accessed via the British Newspaper Archive) among others.

Advertisement, various publications

“KIDNAPPED,” which is the title of the romance by Mr. R. L. Stevenson, newly published by Messrs. Cassell and Co., is a Scottish story of the Jacobite times. As stated in the title page, it is the “Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the year 1751. How he was kidnapped and cast away; his sufferings in a desert isle; his journey in the West Highlands [sic]; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so called; written by himself.” The book is one of thrilling adventure, and is written with all the literary skill and splendid dramatic power which distinguishes Mr. Stevenson’s previous stories. No one beginning “Kidnapped” will willingly lay it down till it has been completed. By way of giving a sample of its contents, we extract the following isolated scene:—

[quote from the novel, from But now our time of truce was come to an end... to “...am I no a bonny fighter?”]

Another standard advert; appears in the Sheffield Weekly Telegraph of Saturday 31 July 1886 (accessed via the British Newspaper Archive) and the Auckland Star of 27 October 1886, here.

Advertisement, various publications

As “King Solomon’s Mines” was the “book of the season” last year, “Kidnapped” is undoubtedly the book of this. Mr. R. L. Stevenson has accomplished the almost impossible task of rivalling “Treasure Island.” “Kidnapped” is a most fascinating story, and will be read by people of all ages with the keenest possible interest and pleasure. Its author is the Defoe of the present age, and no book since the publication of “Robinson Crusoe” can be placed in the same category with it.

Another standard advert; appears in the Loftus Advertiser for Saturday 7 August 1886 and the Marlborough Times for 7 August 1886 (both accessed via the British Newspaper Archive), among others.

Partial reviews

These are generally where I’ve found another source, often an advertisement, that quotes from a review, but not a copy of the review itself.

The New York World, Sunday 25 July 1886

There is perhaps a book for every mood, and even the seaside holiday mood may find its affinity now and then. If so, it would not be easy to designate a caterer more promising than Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, who, whether he embarks on ‘An Inland Voyage’ or ‘Travels with a Donkey,’ or shapes his course for whatever point of the compass, generally contrives to find a harbor in the most cordial sympathies of his reader. His late account of Dr. Jekyll’s strange predicament has attracted the attention of every humane schoolboy and philosopher in the English-speaking world; and now, still through the mediumship of Messrs. Charles Scribner’s Sons, he has set forth the surprising adventures of one Mr. David Balfour, who was kidnapped in the year 1751, and who, during the two or three months next ensuing, passed through extraordinary perils and hardships, not least among which was his accidental association with the murder of Colin Campbell and his participation in the danger and flight of the supposed assassin, Alan Breck Stewart. . . . Most of the characters and incidents of the book are of the author’s own creation. David Balfour himself (who tells the story in the first person) is an able conception, though he does not succeed in portraying himself quite so clearly as he does the persons with whom he comes in contact. His uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, ‘falsely so called,’ is an admirable bit of humoristic portraiture. The situation from which the story starts is odd and original. . . . But inasmuch as every reader of the World will probably become a reader of Mr. Stevenson’s book, it will be unnecessary for me to say anything more about it.

From an advertisement in The Nation of 5 August 1886, here.

The New York Star, 1 August 1886

Mr. Stevenson is a master of language, and cultivates assiduously those phrases which are known as idiomatic. Often blunt and direct of speech, he imagines every scene, conversation, and event with such clearness that he can so bring it before us as to make it perfectly real. He rejoices in a train of exciting incidents, and has no other object than to follow it out and make his characters appear as real as the incidents. Yet there is a daintiness of touch, a dreamy freedom of invention in his amiable fabrications which lend them a charm somewhat more ideal than that of Defoe.

From an advertisement in The Nation of 5 August 1886, here.

Boston Beacon, date unknown

The most popular book of the hour.

From an advertisement in The Nation of 22 July 1886, here.

Daily News, date unknown

Mr. Stevenson’s study of Highland character in ‘Kidnapped,’ in its strength and its weakness, is the best thing of the sort which has been written since ‘Rob Roy,’ if, indeed, it is not better than ‘Rob Roy.’

From an advertisement in The Athenaeum of 7 August 1886, and also in The Times of 27 July 1886 (accessed via The Times Digital Archive). The Daily News is available in the British Newspaper Archive, but my searches there have failed to find this review.

Hartford Courant, date unknown

Gives us as good a picture of the Highlanders a century ago as Gogol gives us of the Cossacks. . . . The adventures are startling, but the skill of the author makes them real to a degree and very readable.

From an advertisement in The Nation of 29 July 1886, here.

James Payn, publication and date unknown

The new story, ‘Kidnapped,’ by the author of ‘Treasure Island,’ will be found as delightful as its predecessor. It is a story partly of the sea, partly of the Western Highlands, in the stirring times of the middle of the last century. It has the same Defoe-like truths of which the writer has given us already so admirable an example, with at least one character sketch (that of Alan Breck) which will vie with John Silver.

From an advertisement in The New York Times of 30 July 1886, here.

New York Scottish American, date unknown

Mr. Stevenson is a rare story teller. He weaves no complicated plot nor does he burden the reader with psychological conundrums in describing his heroes or his heroines. He sits down as it were to tell us something novel, something apart from the routine of every-day life, and he tells it frankly and equally, and without apparent effort.

From an advertisement in The Nation of 29 July 1886, here.

Portland Advertiser, date unknown

Beyond a doubt Mr. Stevenson’s best work.

From an advertisement in The Nation of 22 July 1886, here.

Washington Capital, date unknown

While copies of ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ are sold at the rate of a thousand each week, another book by Mr. Stevenson appears which deserves an equal success. . . . Mr. Stevenson is possessed of the happy faculty of telling the most thrilling tales of sea dogs, pirates, fights, and murders in a wholesome way, so it is still possible for one’s nerves to be drawn to the tightest tension without doing the smallest moral injury.

From an advertisement in The Nation of 22 July 1886, here. A valuable opinion here from Victorian fandom antis.

Other interesting stuff

A miscellaneous collection of things that are not reviews or otherwise making general commentary on the book after its publication, but that have something interesting to say about it.

Evidence of the publication date

I mentioned above that sources on this were conflicting; here they are:

• Publication date given as ‘MONDAY NEXT, July 12’ in The Athenaeum (Britain) of 10 July 1886, here.
• Publication date given as ‘WEDNESDAY NEXT, the 14th inst.’ in The Spectator (Britain) of 10 July 1886, here.
• Described as ‘ready July 12th’ in The Publishers’ Weekly (USA) of 3 July 1886, here.
• Described as ‘ready to-day’ in The New York Times (USA) of 14 July 1886, here.
• Publication date given as 15 July in St. James’s Gazette (Britain) of Thursday 8 July 1886 (accessed via the British Newspaper Archive).

The American, 20 March 1886

Vol. 11 issue 293. Available here.

Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, in spite of his poor health, has managed to complete another novel, more in the style of “Treasure Island” than any of his other books, and bearing this remarkably detailed title: ‘‘Kidnapped; being memoirs of the adventures of David Belfour [sic] in the year 1751. How he was kidnapped and cast away; his sufferings on a desert isle; his journeys in the wild Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Breck Stewart, and the sons of the notorious Rob Roy; with all that he suffered at the hands of his Uncle Ebenezer Belfour [sic] of Shaws, falsely so-called, written by himself, and now set forth by Mr. Stevenson.”——Messrs. Roberts Bros., one may here note, announced for early publication Mr. Stevenson’s “Prince Otto,” which preceded “The Strange Case,” but has so far escaped production on this side. It is a sincere trouble to lovers of good books that this brilliant and delightful author is a confirmed invalid. To be sure, he may yet do more work than men now apparently well and hearty, but the chances are sadly against it. He is a consumptive, but he has indomitable pluck and will.

Aww.

The County Gentleman Sporting Gazette and Cultural Journal, Saturday 24 July 1886

Accessed via the British Newspaper Archive.

The gentle critics who write up the works of Mr. Louis Stevenson mean well in their columns of St. James’s and their leaders of St. Lucy. “Kidnapped” is a delightful story. There are degrees of compliments in criticism, but Mr. Stevenson’s friends invariably indulge in superlatives till their adjectives are exhausted. And the result is that the reader may possibly be inclined to look for too much. “Kidnapped” is, to my mind, more enthralling than “Treasure Island.” The Mutual Admiration Society have decided that it is not. But they wallow in ecstatic columns all the same. “Kidnapped” is published at a crown. Every person who goes a-holiday-making ought to take a copy with him.

A hilariously snarky commentary upon the reviews, the accuracy of which is fairly illustrated by the rest of this page—but they still like the book!

The Magazine of Music, September 1886

Vol. 3 issue 30. Available here.

MR. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON gives a humorous incident in his engaging work “Kidnapped.” Two deadly enemies, Alan and Robin Oig, come to a duel; but, before drawing swords, they agree to contend with bagpipes. Robin Oig played with such effect upon his instrument that Alan was fairly overcome with delighted admiration, and will not fight a man that can play so well. “Robin Oig,” said he, ‘‘you are a great piper. I am not fit to blow in the same kingdom with ye. . . . It would go against my heart to haggle a man that can blow the pipes as you can.” As Milton says, “Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie.”

A charming specialist-subject comment on the book!