HOW HE WAS KIDNAPPED AND CAST AWAY; HIS SUFFERINGS IN
     A DESERT ISLE; HIS JOURNEY IN THE WILD HIGHLANDS;
         HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH ALAN BRECK 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 BY
                 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
            WITH A PREFACE BY MRS. STEVENSON

    PREFACE TO THE BIOGRAPHICAL
        EDITION

    While my husband
           and Mr. Henley
        were engaged in writing
               plays in Bournemouth
         they made a number
               of titles,
           hoping to use them
               in the future.

    Dramatic composition was not
         what my husband preferred,
           but the torrent
               of Mr. Henley's enthusiasm
              swept him off his feet.

    However,
           after several plays
            had been finished,
         and his health seriously
              impaired by his endeavours
            to keep
                   up with Mr. Henley,
           play writing was abandoned forever,
         and my husband
               returned to his legitimate vocation.

    Having added
           one of the titles,
         The Hanging Judge,
         to the list
               of projected plays,
           now thrown aside,
         and emboldened
               by my husband's offer
              to give me
                   any help needed,
           I concluded to try
              and write it myself.

    As I wanted
           a trial scene
               in the Old Bailey,
           I chose the period
               of 1700
             for my purpose;
        but being shamefully ignorant
               of my subject,
           and my husband
            confessing to little more
                     knowledge than
             I possessed,
         a London bookseller
            was commissioned
                  to send us everything
             he could procure bearing
                   on Old Bailey trials.

    A great package
        came in response
               to our order,
           and very soon
             we were both absorbed,
         not so much
               in the trials
             as in following
                   the brilliant career
                 of a Mr. Garrow,
           who appeared
               as counsel
                   in many of the cases.

    We sent for more books,
           and yet more,
         still intent on Mr. Garrow,
           whose subtle cross-examination
               of witnesses
             and masterly,
         if sometimes startling,
           methods of arriving
               at the truth
            seemed more
                  thrilling to us
                       than any novel.

    Occasionally other trials
           than those
               of the Old Bailey
        would be
              included in the package
                   of books
         we received from London;
        among these my husband found
              and read with avidity:-
        -

    THE TRIAL OF JAMES STEWART
        in Aucharn
               in Duror
                   of Appin FOR THE Murder
                 of COLIN CAMPBELL of Glenure,
           Efq;
        Factor for His Majefty
            on the forfeited Estate
                     of Ardfhiel.

    My husband
        was always
              interested in this period
                   of his country's history,
           and had already the intention
               of writing a story
             that should
                  turn on the Appin murder.

    The tale
        was to be
               of a boy,
           David Balfour,
         supposed to belong
               to my husband's own family,
           who should
              travel in Scotland as
             though it
                were a foreign country,
         meeting with various adventures
               and misadventures
             by the way.

    From the trial
           of James Stewart my husband
         gleaned much valuable material
               for his novel,
           the most important
            being the character
                   of Alan Breck.

    Aside from
        having described him as
         "smallish in stature,"
            my husband seems
              to have
                  taken Alan Breck's personal appearance,
           even to his clothing,
         from the book.

    A letter
           from James Stewart
               to Mr. John Macfarlane,
           introduced as evidence
               in the trial,
         says:
           "There is one Alan Stewart,
               a distant friend
                   of the late Ardshiel's,
             who is
                   in the French service,
               and came
                   over in March last,
             as he said to some,
               in order
                  to settle at home;
            to others,
               that he
                was to go soon back;
            and was,
               as I hear,
             the day
                 that the murder was committed,
               seen not far
                   from the place
                 where it happened,
             and is not now
                  to be seen;
            by which it is believed
                 he was the actor.