Book Review: Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Kidnapped (1886)

Robert Louis Stevenson

I started this book as a youth, but I abandoned it along the way for reasons I don't now recall. Today, coming back to Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson years later, I am stunned to find I don't recall a single word or event from even the beginning of the tale. So it goes.

The story is surprisingly political, full of Scottish clan maneuvering and Jacobite intrigue. I've recently read The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory and A Spectacle of Corruption by David Liss, historical novels set in approximately this era with a decidedly British bent, but this particular book's political perspective was more that of Scotland.

I suppose I was expecting more of a swashbuckling adventure. The story is absolutely an adventure of sorts, but it is also a tale of family betrayal, of an odd friendship, and of local clan rivalries. It ends up following quite a more meandering course than Stevenson's Treasure Island, for example.

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