Kidnapped by R L Stevenson

'There is something about the story that sings', wrote William James. Scots agree, choosing Kidnapped to represent Edinburgh as a UNESCO City of Literature. Readers worldwide concur, keeping the novel in print and in translation since its publication in 1886. The New Edinburgh Edition of Kidnapped is the first full, scholarly edition of this popular and important book. This edition brings out the variety and the energy of Stevenson's text and his writing process for the first time. Readers can see and appreciate for themselves the author's thoughtful and determined negotiations between his Scottish subject and voice, the imperatives of genre determined by contemporary critics, and his growing international audience. For instance, they will be surprised to discover that David sets out not from Essendean, but the less romantic 'Ogilvy', or that though the stolid David becomes more 'English' in the process of Stevenson's revisions, Uncle Ebeneezer becomes more pawkily Scottish. Following the text Stevenson emphasised (the first book publication), but making available a manuscript never before faithfully represented, and exposing the various stages of Stevenson's revisions, this edition manifests the real richness of Stevenson's artistic work as it evolved in a lively contemporary world.

Caroline McCracken-Flesher is Professor of English Literature at the University of Wyoming.