Kidnapped

Being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour; how he was kidnapped and cast away; his sufferings in a desert isle; his journey in the west Highlands; his acquaintance with Alan Black Stewart and other notorious Highland Jacobites; with all that he suffered at the hands of his uncle, Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws, falsely so-called; written by himself and now set forth

London: Humphrey Milford, 1930.

First edition of the illustrated edition with twelve coloured plate by English painter Rowland Hilder and one map showing the probable course of David Balfour's wanderings. Illustrated pastedowns front and back. Small quarto (9.5 x 7 ins) pp 290. Original decorative cloth with gilt lettering and two illustrated panels, one to front the other to the spine. Top edge gilt. Ends of spines of jacket chipped, spine darkened. A lovely copy in the slightly rubbed slipcase which duplicates the picture on the front cover of the jacket. Voted Number 24 in The Guardian's 100 Best Novels, with critic Robert McCrum stating, "To me, Kidnapped is his masterpiece, an unforgettable novel of action that would inspire writers as varied as Joseph Conrad, John Buchan, Graham Greene and Muriel Spark. It is also a fascinating meditation on the complexity of the Scots character, half Celt, half Saxon" (Guardian, March 2014)