Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson

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Résumé :
Kidnapped was published in 1886 amid one of the most productive periods of Robert Louis Stevenson's career. Although it was immediately met with popular success and critical acclaim, the novel was derided for decades as a story for children before being recognized as a major work of English literature. Set in the aftermath of the Jacobite uprising of 1745, and full of a rich blend of English and Scots, Kidnapped is a powerful work with strong Scottish ties. The narrative follows David Balfour, a 17-year-old orphan whose uncle, the wretched and disturbed Ebenezer, conspires to steal the family estate, David's rightful inheritance. When David discovers his uncle's plan, Ebenezer tricks the boy and sells him to Captain Hoseason, a slaver embarking for the Carolinas. Blindsided by a blow to the head, David awakes in the hold of the Covenant, bound with rope and helpless as the ship bears him toward the terrors of slavery. By a stroke of faith, however, the ship gets lost in fog and strikes a smaller boat near the west coast of Scotland. In the ensuing chaos, David and one of the wreck's survivors, Jacobite rebel Alan Breck Stewart, gain control of the ship and force Captain Hoseason to turn the Covenant toward the mainland. When the ship runs up against rocks, David finds himself alone on shore, and bravely begins his landward journey to regain his inheritance. Swept up in political circumstances far beyond his control, and faced with the danger awaiting him at home, David must do all he can to survive. To read Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped is to enter a world fully formed by the mind of one of history's greatest storytellers. David Balfour's story is gripping not just because it is a tale of survival, but because his struggle to overcome the merciless turns of fate is, to its core, unbearably and beautifully human. Kidnapped is a historical adventure novel adored by readers, critics, and writers alike. It is a story for children and adults who refuse to accept that hope is a thing to outgrow. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this new edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

Biographie:
1850-1894 Novelist and essayist, was born at Edinburgh, the son of Thomas Stevenson, a distinguished civil engineer. His health was extremely delicate. He was destined for the engineering profession, in which his family had for two generations been eminent, but having neither inclination nor physical strength for it, he, in 1871, exchanged it for law, and was called to the Bar in 1875, but never practised. From childhood his interests had been literary, and in 1871, he began to contribute to the Edinburgh University Magazine and the Portfolio. A tour in a canoe in 1876 led to the publication in 1878 of his first book, An Inland Voyage. In the same year, The New Arabian Nights, afterwards separately published appeared in magazines, and in 1879, he brought out Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes. In that year, he went to California and married Mrs. Osbourne. Returning to Europe in 1880, he entered upon a period of productiveness which, in view of his wretched health, was, both as regards quantity and worth, highly remarkable. The year 1881 was marked by his unsuccessful candidature for the Chair of Constitutional Law and History at Edinburgh, and by the publication of Virginibus Puerisque. Other works followed in rapid succession. Treasure Island (1882), Prince Otto and The Child's Garden of Verse (1885), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Kidnapped (1886), Underwoods (poetry), Memories and Portraits (essays), and The Merry Men, a collection of short stories (1887), and in 1888, The Black Arrow. In 1887, he went to America, and in the following year visited the South Sea Islands where, in Samoa, he settled in 1890, and where he died and is buried. In 1889, The Master of Ballantrae appeared, in 1892, Across the Plains and The Wrecker, in 189, Island Nights Entertainments and Catriona, and in 1894, The Ebb Tide in collaboration with his step-son, Mr. Lloyd Osbourne. By this time his health was completely broken, but to the last he continued the struggle, and left the fragments St. Ives and Weir of Hermiston, the latter containing some of his best work. They were published in 1897. Though the originality and power of Stevenson's writings was recognised from the first by a select few, it was only slowly that he caught the ear of the general public. The tide may be said to have turned with the publication of Treasure Island in 1882, which at once gave him an assured place among the foremost imaginative writers of the day. His greatest power is, however, shown in those works which deal with Scotland in the 18th century, such as Kidnapped, Catriona, and Weir of Hermiston, and in those, e.g., The Child's Garden of Verse, which exhibit his extraordinary insight into the psychology of child-life...

Sommaire:
Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish writer born on November 13, 1850, in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. He became renowned for his diverse body of work, which includes novels, essays, poetry, and travel writing. Some of his most celebrated works are Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped, and A Child s Garden of Verses. Stevenson was educated at the University of Edinburgh and attended both the Edinburgh Academy Senior School and Edinburgh Law School. Although initially studying law, he pursued a career in writing, drawing inspiration from authors such as Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Walter Scott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Guy de Maupassant. He married Fanny Stevenson in 1880, and they lived together until his death in 1894. Stevenson s writing often explored themes of adventure, morality, and the duality of human nature, particularly evident in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He spent the latter part of his life in Samoa, where he passed away on December 3, 1894, at the age of 44. His works have left a lasting impact on literature, influencing generations of writers and readers....