d to have been very successful as a serial, but
it has not been a great favourite in book form, and is one of the least
interesting of his stories.

_Kidnapped_ came out in 1886 in the same paper and was the first to be
signed as by Robert Louis Stevenson. In its serial form it was not
highly paid for but it had, when Messrs Cassell & Co. published it as a
book, a large and an immediate success. It forms the first instalment of
the delightful experiences of David Balfour, that somewhat pawky young
Scot who, from the moment he leaves 'The Hawes Inn' at Queensferry and
embarks on his adventures with Alan Breck and other strange worthies in
Appin and elsewhere till we finally bid him good-bye on the last page of
_Catriona_, never fails at odd times and places to remind one of Mr
Stevenson himself at David's age and of what he might have been and done
had David Balfour's fate been his in those early days of plot and
turmoil in which his part is played.

_Catriona_, which is a continuation of _Kidnapped_, at first appeared in
_Atalanta_, and was published in book form by Messrs Cassell & Co. in
1893. In the recent edition of 1898 both volumes are brought out as _The
History of David Balfour_, and are beautifully illustrated. _Catriona_
is a charming book, full of life and action, and the breezy, outdoor
existence, in the picturing of which its author excels. The Edinburgh of
the last half of the eighteenth century, with its quaint closes, and
quainter manners, is admirably portrayed, and the old lady with whom
Catriona lives, and Lord Prestongrange and his daughters, are very
clever pictures from a bygone day. Indeed, Miss Grant is one of the best
drawn women in all Mr Stevenson's books; she has life and reality in a
greater degree than most of his female characters. She is true to
feminine human nature in any age, and as she makes eyes at David Balfour
from under her plumed hat, and flirts with him across the narrow close,
she is very woman, and alive enough to be some later day judge's
daughter of modern Edinburgh, coquetting with Mr Stevenson himself,
while she playfully adjusts her becoming head-gear, and lets her long
feathers droop to the best advantage.

She and the two Kirsties in the unfinished _Weir of Hermiston_ stand out
alone among all the heroines in Mr Stevenson's books as real breathing,
living women. They are natural, they are possible, they have life and
interest; all the rest are more or less lay figures