Kidnapped (Robert Louis Stevenson)

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Binding of
the first edition by Cassell in 1886

Kidnapped or The Adventures of David Balfour ( English. Kidnapped ) is a historical adventure novel by the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson , which - written in the seaside resort of Bournemouth - appeared in the spring of 1886 in Young Folks , a literary magazine for young people. In the same year Cassell in London and Scribner's sons in New York brought the work out. The German first edition appeared in 1890 under the title David Balfour or Die Seelenverkäufer in Stuttgart.

background

Scotland, years after the Second Jacobite Rising . On May 14, 1752, Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure, the British appointed bailiff for the county of North Argyll , was shot from behind by a sniper in the Ballachulisher area. The main suspects are Alan Breck Stuart and Jakob Stuart.

The route

David's adventurous route by boat around and on foot through Scotland

The 16-year-old aristocratic David Balfour from Shaws spent his entire life in poor conditions in the forest of Ettrick - in an unnamed village in the Scottish Borders , i.e. in the Scottish Lowlands. From there, the orphaned boy goes on his odyssey out into the world on foot - first to Pastor Campbell in the nearby fictional town of Essendean. At the pastor's behest, David wants to inherit his inheritance in Cramond, two days' walk away . On the way through Colinton he reached Shaws' uncle Ebenezer Balfour. This insidious relative wants to get rid of him; Unceremoniously sell him to Carolina as a white slave . So the villain invites the nephew for a walk to Queensferry . Violently to the trading brig Covenant of Dysart Captain Elias Hoseason shipped, we drive around the northern tip of Scotland around (see overview map above right in the illustration) towards overseas. But the voyage ends abruptly before Earraid. The brig shattered in the storm. At Torosay on Mull , David takes the ferry to Loch Aline on the Scottish mainland and crosses it on foot via Morven , Loch Linnhe , the Appin, Glen Coe to Ben Alder , to Balquhidder and finally via Limekilns , Carriden back to Queensferry.

content

As David learns at the end of the novel, his father Alexander and his brother Ebenezer had loved the same woman. Ebenezer had lost out and was given the Shaws estate in Cramond as consolation. For this, David's father had retired all his life with his mother in the forest of Ettrick as a village school teacher.

Stevenson moves the events indicated above under background to the beginning of July 1751. Before Uncle Ebenezer can kidnap the nephew, he tries a murder. During a nocturnal thunderstorm, he sends David in the dark over the handrailless staircase to the house tower of the manor (see cover at the top right of the article). The nephew survived.

David cannot come to terms with his imprisonment on the brig Covenant . He wants to write to Pastor Campbell and Mr. Rankeillor, the family's lawyer, - a hopeless attempt at rescue on the high seas. On the way the brig rams an open boat. The Jacobite Alan Breck Stuart is fished out of the sea. Alan carries gold pieces with him - lease money that he wanted to deliver to his Appinian clan chief Ardshiel, who was starving in French exile. Alan, who deserted to Culloden in 1746 , became a soldier of the King of France . When the robber crew of the brig learns of the gold, they want Alan to live. David is drawn into the project, but takes Alan's side. Both fighters emerge victorious from the onslaught of superior numbers. Alan stabs the helmsman to death. The navigator is now missing on board. The next storm is programmed to break the brig on the cliffs. In the maze of islands, David loses sight of his comrade in arms.

Then in the birch forest of Lettermore, a long way from Ballachulish, David encounters a procession of mounted English soldiers. When he approaches them on the way to Aucharn, the train stops. Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure - that's the Red Fox - leads the riders. The leader's counter-question shows that he knows someone from Aucharn: Jacob von Schlucht - alias Jakob Stuart, brother of Ardshiel. David doesn't let himself be put off; pretends to be an "honest subject of King George ". The red fox is shot from ambush at the end of the conversation. David is suspected of complicity. He finally stopped the train. Alan appears with the fishing rod. The friends manage to escape.

David believes Alan is not at the scene by accident and wants to march on alone. Alan denies complicity. Still, a Campbell , a mortal enemy of the deserter Alan, was killed. The friends stay together and visit Alan's relative, Jakob Stuart. Jakob knows that the suspicion will have already fallen on him. The murder happened on his territory. He is the tax collector of Ardshiel and thus the worst opponent of the dead tax collector Roter Fuchs, the "so-called royal administrator of the Appin country". Jacob fears for his wife and child. He demands that Alan leave Scotland as a suspect. In order to protect himself and his family, Jakob wants the deserter to be searched for on a pro forma basis.

The news that Alan and David get through the Corrynakiegh Gorge up to Ben Alder is not encouraging. Jakob was held in Fort William and the two refugees are wanted by the British. Fortunately, David's name is unknown. Two narrative highlights on the way to Queensferry are the stay with Cluny Macpherson, head of the Vourich clan and the longer rest with Robin Oig Macgregor - a son of Rob Roy - in the Balquhidder area due to David's illness .

The two wanted refugees do not dare to use the guarded bridge over the Forth . A landlord's daughter from Limekilns helps unselfishly.

Lawyer Rankeillor and Alan help David get his rightful inheritance. The vile Uncle Ebenezer is tricked and has to give in. In return, David stands by his friend Alan.

Quote

"There are two things that a person should never tire of: goodness and humility."

shape

A certain editor of David's memoirs has the prospect of a sequel at the end of the novel, the appearance of which he attaches to one condition: The book Kidnapped must please the public. Only then can the reader find out what happens to David, Alan and the murderous Red Fox case. The latter is neglected in Kidnapped . At the time of the crime, David merely said: "He [the gunman] was a strong man, dressed in black, wore metal buttons on his skirt and carried a long bird gun with him ... with ape-like skill he climbed on ..." There was no further word about this man until the end of the novel lost. Alan, who was at the crime scene at the time of the crime, may - according to the evidence - most likely have been of the narrative highlighted characters. When he first appeared in the novel, he wore a “skirt with silver buttons” and was “not tall”.

reception

  • A more detailed analysis can be found at Dölvers. English-speaking reviewers had found Smollett's The Adventures of Roderick Random and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe as role models and raised some allegations of plagiarism. The opposing character pair Alan / David is considered: Alan, "the amoral-vital highland dweller", who is not afraid to gamble away his friend's money, stands against "the principled David" who forgives this faux pas with difficulty.
  • Klotz briefly goes into two historical facts. The Scottish patriot Stevenson articulates this via mouthpiece Alan Breck Stuart at every suitable opportunity - sometimes almost frenetically: the England-friendly attitude of the Campbells with the Duke of Argyll at the head and the fight of the Jacobites against the Whigs .
  • Alan is largely a historical figure. Before writing the novel, Stevenson studied literature on the murder trial of Jacob Stuart.
  • In his 2014 novel "The Last Place", the German-Iraqi author Sherko Fatah quotes the opening passage from "Kidnapped" in an email. With this email, the protagonist Albert, who was kidnapped in Iraq, wants to draw the attention of his sister, who lives in Germany, to his own kidnapping. Fatah mentioned in a newspaper interview that reading Stevenson's novel had inspired him in his own work.

Film adaptations

motion pictures
TV Movie

German-language literature

expenditure

  • David Balfour or The Soul Sellers. Fates and adventures of a refugee in the Scottish highlands. A story for the mature youth based on Robert Louis Stevenson, freely edited by Paul Moritz. With 16 tone prints by WB Holz. Thienemanns Verlag , Stuttgart around 1890.
  • Robert Louis Stevenson: Kidnapped. Translator: Clarissa Meitner. Phaidon-Verlag , Vienna 1924.
  • Robert Louis Stevenson: Kidnapped. With drawings by Gunter Böhmer . Translator: Albert Heider. Atlantis , Zurich 1946.
  • Robert Louis Stevenson: Kidnapped. Translator: Eva Schumann. Foreword: Fritz Hofmann. Construction , Berlin 1956.
  • Robert Louis Stevenson: Kidnapped or The Adventures of David Balfour. Translated from the English by Eva Schumann . 1st edition. Epilogue: Günther Klotz. Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1969.
  • Robert Louis Stevenson: The Abduction . Translator: Käthe Recheis . Draftsman: Jochen Bartsch . Hoch Verlag, Düsseldorf 1978, ISBN 3-7779-0238-1 .
  • Robert Louis Stevenson: Kidnapped or the memories of David Balfour of his adventures in 1751. With a foreword by EY Meyer . Translated from English by Michael Walter . Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1979, ISBN 3-458-32021-0 (it 321)
  • Robert Louis Stevenson: Kidnapped. The Adventures of David Balfour. Translator: Michael Walter. Epilogue: Alfred C. Baumgärtner. Dressler, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-7915-3559-5 (Dressler classic)

Secondary literature

  • Horst Dölvers: The narrator Robert Louis Stevenson. Interpretations. Francke Verlag, Bern 1969, DNB 456469621 .
  • Michael Reinbold: Robert Louis Stevenson. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1995, ISBN 3-499-50488-X .

Web links

English

Wikisource: Kidnapped  - Sources and full texts (English)
Commons : Kidnapped  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ^ Title of other German-language transmissions: Die Entführung. The adventures of David Balfour (Reinbold, p. 151, 6. Zvu), Abducted and Abducted or David Balfour's memories of his adventures in 1751 ( GND see below).
  2. ↑ In England and Scotland actually a factor .
  3. ↑ Stevenson's mother Margaret was born Balfour.
  4. ↑ Meant are the two Carolinas (English The Carolinas ), i.e. North and South Carolina .
  5. ↑ Stevenson visited the island in 1870 (Klotz in the afterword of the edition used, p. 288 below).
  6. ↑ Stevenson probably means the place that Jakob Stuart has in the name: Acharn .
  7. ↑ Edition used.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klotz in the afterword of the edition used, p. 289, 4th Zvu
  2. ↑ engl. Young Folks
  3. ↑ engl. Cassell
  4. ↑ engl. Charles Scribner's Sons
  5. ↑ Reinbold, p. 151, penultimate entry
  6. ↑ engl. Jacobite rising of 1745
  7. ↑ engl. Alan Breck Stewart , son of Duncan Stewart
  8. ↑ engl. James Stewart
  9. ↑ engl. Ettrick Forest (see also Ettrick, Scotland )
  10. ↑ engl. Essendean
  11. ↑ engl. Colinton
  12. ↑ Edition used, p. 59, 4th Zvo and p. 277, 6th Zvo
  13. ↑ engl. Dysart
  14. ↑ engl. Erraid
  15. ↑ engl. Loch Aline
  16. ↑ engl. Appin
  17. ↑ engl. Limekilns
  18. ↑ engl. Ardshiel
  19. ↑ engl. Acharn
  20. ↑ engl. Cluny Macpherson
  21. ↑ Edition used, p. 144, 7th Zvu
  22. ↑ Bird shotgun
  23. ↑ Edition used, p. 150, 8. Zvu and p. 151, 1. Zvo
  24. ↑ Edition used, p. 70, 12. Zvu and p. 69, 9. Zvu
  25. ↑ Dölvers, pp. 137-149.
  26. ↑ engl. The Adventures of Roderick Random
  27. ↑ Dölvers, p. 140, 3rd Zvu
  28. ^ Dölvers, p. 140, 2. Zvu, p. 145, 7. Zvu and p. 146, 15. Zvo
  29. ↑ Klotz in the afterword of the edition used, p. 294.
  30. ↑ Reinbold, p. 95, 16. Zvu to p. 98, 7. Zvo
  31. ↑ Sherko Fatah: The Last Place. Luchterhand-Verlag, Munich 2014, p. 104.
  32. ↑ faz.net
  33. ↑ stuttgarter-nachrichten.de