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00 Preface · Classic Adventure Books Library

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  Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson Breakfast to the biographical edition. While my husband and
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  mister Henley were engaged in writing plays in Bournemouth, they made a number of
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  titles, hoping to use them in the future. Dramatic composition was not what
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  my husband preferred, but the tord of mister Henley's enthusiasm swept him off his
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  feet. However, after several plays had been finished, and his health seriously
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  impaired by his endeavors to keep up with mister Henley, playwriting was abandoned forever,
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  and my husband returned to his legitimate vocation. Having added one of the
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  titles, The Hanging Judge, to the list of projected plays now thrown aside,
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  and emboldened by my husband's offer to give me any help needed, I
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  concluded to try and write it myself, as I wanted a trial scene in
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  the Old Bailey. I chose the period of seventeen hundred for my purpose,
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  but, being shared aimfully ignorant of my subject, and my husband confessing to
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  little more knowledge than I possessed, a London bookseller was commissioned to send us
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  everything he could procure, bearing on Old Bailey, trials. A great package
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  came in response to our order, and very soon we were both absorbed,
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  not so much in the trials as in following the brilliant career of a mister
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  Garrow, who appeared as counsel in many of the cases. We sent for
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  more books, and yet more, still intent on mister Garrow, whose subtle
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  cross examination of witnesses and masterly, if sometimes startling methods of arriving at the
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  truth seemed more thrilling to us than any novel. Occasionally, other trials than
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  those in the Old Bailey would be included in the package of books we received
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  from London. Among these my husband found and read with avidity, the trial
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  of James Stewart in o'carne en, Durer of Eppin, for the murder of
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  Colin Campbell of Glenor e f q Factor for his majesty on the forfeited estate
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  of Ardfield. My husband was always interested in this period of his country's history,
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  and had already the intention of writing a story that should turn on the
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  Appen murder. The tale was to be of a boy, David Balfour,
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  supposed to belong to my husband's own family, who should travel in Scotland as
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  though it were a foreign country, meeting with various adventures and misadventures. By
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  the way, from the trial of James Stewart, my husband gleaned much valuable
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  material for his novel, the most important being the character of Alan Breck.
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  Aside from having described him as smallish in stature, my husband seems to have
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  taken Alan Breck's personal appearance, even to his clothing from the book. A
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  letter from James Stewart to mister John McFarlane introduced his evidence in the trial,
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  says, there is one Alan Stewart, a distant friend of the late Art
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  deals, who is in the French service, and came over in March last
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  as he said to some in order to settle at home, to others that
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  he was to go soon back, and was, as I hear, the
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  day that the murder was committed, seen not far from the place where it
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  happened, and is not now to be seen, by which it is believed
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  he was the actor. He is a desperate, foolish fellow, and if
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  he is guilty, came to the country for that very purpose. He is
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  a tall, hawk pitted lad, very black hair, and wore a blue
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  coat and metal buttons, an old red vest, and breeches of the same
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  color. A second witness testified to having seen him wearing a blue coat with
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  silver buttons, a red waistcoat, black shag breeches, tartan hose, and
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  a feathered hat with a big coat dun colored, a costume referred to by
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  one of the council as wrench clothes, which were remarkable. There are many
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  incidents given in the trial that point to Allan's fiery spirit highland quickness to take
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  offense. One witness declared also that the said Alan Brick threatened that he would
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  challenge Bally Violin and his sons to fight because of his removing the declarant last
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  year from Glendura. On another page, Duncan Campbell change keeper at Annett,
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  aged thirty five years married. Witness sighted sworn, purged and examined at Supra
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  depones that in the month of April last the opponent met with Alan breck Stewart,
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  with whom he was not acquainted, and John Stuart in Ochnachuan in the
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  house of the walk Miller of Auchofragan, and went on with them to the
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  house. Alan breck Stewart said that he hated all the name of Campbell,
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  and the opponent said he had no reason for doing so, but Alan said
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  he had very good reason for that. Thereafter they left that house, and
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  after drinking a dram at another house, came to the deponent's house, where
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  they went in and drunk some DRAMs, and Alan Breck renewed the former conversation,
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  and the opponent making the same answer. Alan said that if the deponent
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  had any respect for his friends, he would tell them that if they offered
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  to turn out the possessors of Ardheel's estate, he would make black cocks of
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  them before they entered into possession, by which the deponent understood shooting them,
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  it being a common phrase in the country. Some time after the publication of
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  Kidnapped, we stopped for a short while in the Appen country, where we
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  were surprised and interested to discover that the feeling concerning the murder of Glennyeur the
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  Red Fox, also called Colin Roy, was almost as keen as though the
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  tragedy had taken place the day before. For several years my husband received letters
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  of expostulation or commendation from members of the Campbell and Stuart clans I have in
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  my possession of paper yellow with age that was sent soon after the novel appeared,
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  containing the pedigree of the family of Appine, wherein it is said that
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  Alan, third Baron of Appine, was not killed at Flowdone though there,
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  but lived to a great old age. He married a Cameron, daughter to
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  Ewen mccameron of Lochiel, following this as a paragraph stating that John Stuart,
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  first of Ardshiel of his descendants Alan Breck had better be omitted Duncan Bain Stuart
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  in Achonderach, his father was a bastard. One day, while my husband
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  was busily at work, I sat beside him reading an old cookery book called
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  The Complete Housewife, An accomplished Gentlewoman's Companion. In the midst of receipts for
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  rabbits and chickens, mumbled nickeled samphire skirt, pye, baked tansy and other
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  forgotten delicacies, there were directions for the preparation of several lotions for the preservation
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  of beauty. One of these was so charming that I interrupted my husband to
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  read it aloud. Just what I wanted, he exclaimed, And the receipt
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  for the lily of the valley water was instantly incorporated into Kidnapped Signed F V
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  D G S dedication. My dear Charles Baxter. If you ever read this
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  tale, you will likely ask yourself more questions than I should care to answer,
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  as, for instance, how the app and murder has come to fall
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  in the year seventeen fifty one, how the Torran rocks have crept so near
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  to Eiraid, or why the pretty trial is silent? As to all the
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  touches David Balfour, these are nuts beyond my ability to crack. But if
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  you tried me on the point of Allan's guilt or innocence, I think I
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  could defend the reading of the text To this day you will find the tradition
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  of appin clear in Alan's favor. If you inquire, you may even hear
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  that the descendants of the other man who fired the shot are in the country
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  to this day, but that other man's name. Inquire as you please,
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  you shall not hear. For the Highlander values a secret for itself and for
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  the congenial exercise of keeping it. I might go on for long to justify
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  one point and own another indefensible. It is more honest to confess at once
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  how little I am touched by the desire of accuracy. This is no furniture
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  for the scholar's library, but a book for the winter evening school room,
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  when the tasks are over and the hour for bed draws near. And honest,
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  Alan, who was a grim old fire eater in his stay, has
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  in this new avatar no more desperate purpose than to steal some young gentleman's attention
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  from his ovid, carry him a while into to the highlands and the last
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  century, and pack him to bed with some engaging images to mingle with his
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  dreams. As for you, my dear Charles, I do not even ask
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  you to like this tale. But perhaps when he is older, your son
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  will. He may then be pleased to find his father's name on the fly
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  leaf. And in the meanwhile, it pleases me to set it there in
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  memory of many days that were happy, and some now perhaps is pleasant to
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  remember that were sad. It is strange for me to look back, from
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  a distance, both in time and space, on these bygone adventures of our
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  youth. It must be stranger for you, who tread the same streets,
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  who may tomorrow open the door of the old speculative, where we began to
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  rank with Scott and Robert Emmett and the beloved and inglorious Macbean. Or may
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  pass the corner of the clothes, where that great society the l j R.
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  Held its meetings and drank its beer, sitting in the seats of Burns
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  and his companion. I think I see you moving there by plain daylight,
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  beholding with your natural eyes those places that have now become for your companion a
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  part of the scenery of dreams. How in the interval of present business,
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  the past must echo in your memory. Let it not echo often without some
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  kind thoughts of your friend, Robert Louis Stevenson, signed in Scarybore, Bournemouth.
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  And now a disclaimer your reader is an American. I'm sorry. I
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  will do my absolute level best to pronounce the Scott's words accurately and the names
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  as well, but I cannot promise that they are accurate. Neither can I
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  pretend to a Highland or a Lowland Scot's accent. I will make some kind
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  of an attempt, but please bear with me when I fall short. Thank
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  you and good listening.