Kidnapped: Being Memoirs of the Adventure of David Balfour in the Year 1751. STEVENSON, Robert Louis.

First edition, first issue. Kidnapped is "far more than the adventure story for boys it purports to be. Making skilful use of Scots, it brilliantly evokes the atmosphere of Scotland in the period following the 1745 Jacobite rising". Through the contrasting characters of David Balfour and Alan Breck, it "explores the differences between lowland and highland mentality" (ODNB). Kidnapped was serialized in Young Folks magazine from May to July earlier in 1886. Henry James described Breck as "the most perfect character in English literature" (Haycraft, p. 592). As here, first issue copies print "business" on line 11 of page 40, "nine o'clock" on line 1 of page 64, and "Long Islands" on lines 9-10 of page 101. Mckay & Beinecke 379; Prideaux 18; Slater, p. 20. Daniel Hahn and others, Oxford Companion to Children's Literature, 2015; Howard Haycraft, British Authors of the Nineteenth Century, 1936. Octavo (189 x 136 mm). Folding map frontispiece with coloured outline. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, black coated endpapers. Housed in green quarter morocco solander box. Spine a little toned and leaning, spots of wear to ends, extremities slightly rubbed and bumped, a touch of rubbing to sides. A very good copy.