When the naive David Balfour sets out on his quest for a long lost relative, a terrifying chain of events is set in motion. He is plunged into a world of infamy and violence from which
there seems no escape. The story is set in 18th-century Scotland, and is based around events in the aftermath of the Jacobite Risings. An adventure story "to while away winter
evenings," according to Stevenson, it is also a deeply romantic highland novel, in which Stevenson can be seen to firmly reject the more “romanticized,” lowland view prevalent in
19th-century Scottish fiction.
