Join Amazon Prime and get unlimited Free One-Day Delivery. Already a member? Sign in.

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
35 used & new from £0.01
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Kidnapped (Penguin Classics)
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book

Kidnapped (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

by Robert Louis Stevenson (Author), Donald M. McFarlan (Editor, Introduction) "I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in the month of June, the year of grace 1951, when I..." (more)
4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
RRP: £5.99
Price: £5.39 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £0.60 (10%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Usually dispatched within 6 to 10 days.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

8 new from £4.58 27 used from £0.01
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover 3 used & new from £21.40
Paperback (New Ed. /) £7.99 £5.99 41 used & new from £2.19
Mass Market Paperback (Reissue) £3.99 £3.99 23 used & new from £0.01
Library Binding 2 used & new from £3.00
Hardcover (Large Print) 3 used & new from £8.54
Show more editions and formats

Frequently Bought Together

Kidnapped (Penguin Classics) + Treasure Island (Wordsworth's Children's Classics) + King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (Junior Classics)
Price For All Three: £14.47

Some of these items ship sooner than the others. Show details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Treasure Island (Wordsworth's Children's Classics)

Treasure Island (Wordsworth's Children's Classics)

by Robert Louis Stevenson
4.4 out of 5 stars (13)  £1.99
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (Junior Classics)

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (Junior Classics)

by Benedict Flynn
4.6 out of 5 stars (13)  £7.09
The Family from One End Street: And Some of Their Adventures (Puffin Modern Classics)

The Family from One End Street: And Some of Their Adventures (Puffin Modern Classics)

by Eve Garnett
4.8 out of 5 stars (17)  £5.24
Puck of Pook's Hill (Wordsworth Children's Classics)

Puck of Pook's Hill (Wordsworth Children's Classics)

by Rudyard Kipling
4.7 out of 5 stars (3)  £1.99
Little House on the Prairie (Classic Mammoth)

Little House on the Prairie (Classic Mammoth)

by Laura Ingalls Wilder
4.9 out of 5 stars (10)  £4.49
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Classics; New edition edition (27 Oct 1994)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0140434011
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140434019
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 396,887 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #96 in  Books > Fiction > The Classics > Stevenson, Robert Louis

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Product Description
This edition looks at the Scottish identity through the text of Stevenson's classic. The duality of Scottish life - the mercantile, "respectable" Lowland Scot, as represented by David Balfour, and the romantic, rebellious Highlander, Alan Breck Stewart - runs deep in the psyche and literature of Scotland. Although Stevenson claimed that "Kidnapped" was simply an adventure tale to while away the long winter evenings, the journey and experiences of the characters can be seen as a rite of passage. He questions both the values of the "civilized" Lowland society, and the sentimental view of the highlands portrayed by Sir Walter Scott and others. The topography of the novel is detailed in extensive notes, with a Scots glossary to supplement Stevenson's own.
Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in the month of June, the year of grace 1951, when I took the key for the last time out of the door of my father's house. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Kidnapped (Penguin Classics)
75% buy the item featured on this page:
Kidnapped (Penguin Classics) 4.8 out of 5 stars (5)
£5.39
Treasure Island (Wordsworth's Children's Classics)
12% buy
Treasure Island (Wordsworth's Children's Classics) 4.4 out of 5 stars (13)
£1.99
Kidnapped (Penguin Popular Classics)
6% buy
Kidnapped (Penguin Popular Classics) 3.5 out of 5 stars (4)
£2.00
The Secret Garden (Wordsworth's Children's Classics)
3% buy
The Secret Garden (Wordsworth's Children's Classics) 4.8 out of 5 stars (5)
£1.99
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
5 star:
 (4)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.8 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Scottish Treasure, 25 Sep 2008
By Niels Peter Q. Marstrand (Copenhagen Area, Denmark) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Kidnapped (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)
I'm as great a fan of the present item, Stevenson's *Kidnapped*, as of his better known *Treasure Island*. Yet if really forced to recommend one over the other, I might well choose *Kidnapped*.

At first sight, the two works are disquietingly similar: around the middle of the 18th Century (not Stevenson's own 19th Century), an impoverished, inexperienced, but self-respecting teenage hero is set to sea by circumstance. Here he comes across a crew of thugs whom, supported by strong role-models, he valiantly defeats. Then follows a long voyage of wandering & discovery until he at last comes to spiritual & material independence under the wise & watchful eye of his mentors, portrayed throughout as very pillars of a romanticized British Empire.

But there the similarity does stop. *Kidnapped* is exclusively about Scotland & its entirely unforgettable inhabitants. Its sea voyage is a circumnavigation of Scotland, no more, no less. The perilous return to the home town takes place across hills & heather. Finally & most important, every character in the novel is as Scottish as its teenage hero - or indeed as RL Stevenson was himself.

You might say that *Kidnapped* offers all the assets of *Treasure Island*, plus one: the tense but warm atmosphere of an independence-loving nation during the waning years of its armed rebellion against the English. Stevenson, in loving mastery of his subject yet never as uncritical as he seems, ignores neither politics, intrigues, & clan quarrels, nor the (somewhat predictable) homage to bagpipe & tartans. The book is therefore flavoursome in a manner that even *Treasure Island*, for all its power, never attains. The historical & cultural depth in *Kidnapped* is simply greater - & the book exactly as entertaining, if not more.

I believe this now classic work will go just as well with teens as it did 100 years ago. But it certainly is a book for adults too.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars People to Remember, 5 Aug 2006
By Silver Button "alan breck" (near Williamsburg VA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Kidnapped: The Original Text: or the Lad with the Silver Button (Hardcover)
When I was younger, my family had a collection of illustrated Classic books with a cartoon on every page. Kidnapped was the only book I never read of the collection because of the horrible pictures. (By the way, that problem has been repeated in practically every edition I have seen.) Several years ago I blundered into the book and it has become, by far, one of my favorites.

The beauty of the book is the development of the two characters David Balfour and Alan Breck. I agree with Henry James that the beginning of the books drags, as we are introduced to young David and his unappealing uncle Ebenezer. Alan Breck splashes into the story and provides the contrast to David's personality. The excitement of the book comes when David and Alan are stuck together traveling through the wilderness alone with their own personal grievances against each other. The beautifully realized characters create the tension that propels this compelling story.

Of course, there is the history of the real events this story is based on, and readers may find they want to look further into that, as I have. It's David and Alan, though, that make the story worth anyone's while.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
13 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Original-text edition reveals original intent, adult work., 25 Sep 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Kidnapped: The Original Text: or the Lad with the Silver Button (Hardcover)
Robert Louis Stevenson, one of the most undervalued authors (by adult readers, at least) in English literature, created in _Kidnapped_ a fast-paced adventure tale; a subtle examination of Scottish history and culture; and a pair of unforgettable characters -- the sensible young Lowland protagonist, David Balfour, and his "wild Hielandman" mentor, Alan Breck Stewart. Stevensonian scholar Barry Menikoff offers a challenging new approach to the old favourite in this handsome edition transcribed from the original manuscript in the Huntington Library (and, for the final chapters, from the 1886 serialised version). The result is a text that is closer to the author's original intent than any edition yet published. In his illuminating introduction, itself a model of critical clarity and stylistic grace, Menikoff emphasizes both the mythic appeal of Stevenson's narrative of David Balfour's odyssey and what he terms the "starkness of its realism." The editor's analysis of the author's economical employment of description as the agent of atmosphere and emotion places RLS in the vanguard of a revolution in prose technique that would culminate in the experiments of Hemingway. Menikoff makes a strong case for reexamining the so-called "children's classic" in the light in which it was received by early readers and critics (including Stevenson's friend and literary champion Henry James) -- as a mature work of serious fiction.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars You can almost smell the soggy peat
As a writer, Stevenson knows his stuff. The charcterisation of David and Alan, the two main characters, is excellent and the plot is driven forward by being in the form of a... Read more
Published 16 months ago by ossian

4.0 out of 5 stars thrilling and enjoyable
'Kidnapped' details Davey Balfour's adventures, beginning with his journey to find his uncle as an orphan, subsequent kidnapping aboard the the brig 'Covenant' and latter events... Read more
Published on 16 Sep 2005 by sorbet64

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
This product's forum (0 discussions)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
  No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Feedback

Narrating Scotland: The...

Narrating Scotland: The...

Beloved for generations as one of Robert Louis Stevenson's most... Read more
£34.15

›Find similar items

 

More From Joanne Mattern

Anne of Green...

Anne of Green Gables by L. Montgomery

Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are in for a big surprise. they are... Read more
£5.99 £4.49

 

Train Hard...Play Hard

Nike, Gola, Converse, and more
Gear up with up to 60% off athletic and outdoor shoes.

›Shop now

  

Treat Someone

Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificates--available in any amount from £5 to £500 With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is).

›Learn more about Gift Certificates

  
Ad

Where's My Stuff?

Delivery and Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.
Continue Shopping: Top Sellers
The Girl Who Played with Fire
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
4.5 out of 5 stars (74)£3.86
 Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga)
Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga) by Stephenie Meyer
4.1 out of 5 stars (462)£6.49
 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
4.1 out of 5 stars (164)£3.99
 The Host
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
4.2 out of 5 stars (80)£3.86

amazon.co.uk Amazon Home
International Sites:  United States  |  Germany  |  France  |  Japan  |  Canada  |  China
Business Programs: Sell on Amazon  |  Fulfilment by Amazon  |  Join Associates  |  Join Advantage
Customer Service  |  Help  |  View Basket  |  Your Account
About Amazon.co.uk  |  Careers at Amazon
Conditions of Use & Sale |  Privacy Notice  © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates