August 02, 2020

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

27 minutes

August's edition is a Classic Bookclub - Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped - and is part of BBC Radio 4's ongoing support for students during the Covid-19 crisis. In the absence of Stevenson, our guide to the book is author Louise Welsh, who has written an opera inspired by him.

Kidnapped is one Stevenson’s best loved titles. It’s an historical adventure novel set in Scotland after the Jacobite rising of 1745 and tells the adventures of the recently orphaned sixteen year old David Balfour, as he journeys through the dangerous Scottish Highlands in an attempt to regain his rightful inheritance.

James Naughtie says : "As a young boy Robert Louis Stevenson was my guide to adventure. Kidnapped was always at hand and, like Treasure Island, it introduced me to great story-telling. A boy alone in a country torn apart by war, betrayed by a sad but wicked uncle, and a coming-of-age through adversity. Reading it again, I can still feel the thrill of the first time. That's what great books do".

Author Louise Welsh has said “I think if you were to stop any Scottish writer and ask them to list their top three writers that made them want to write they would mention Stevenson. He’s always been number one for me.”

Bookclub on Kidnapped is recorded as always with an audience of readers, including members of the RLS Club, local school children and university students, at the Hawes Inn, Queensferry, where Stevenson is thought to have started the novel in 1866. The programme was first broadcast in November 2016.

An unabridged reading of Kidnapped is available on BBC Sounds.

Presenter James Naughtie

Interviewed guest : Louise Welsh

Producer : Dymphna Flynn

September's Bookclub Choice : My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (2019)

...more