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Audio Source: Librivox, Public Domain
The Black Arrow
Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850 - 1894)
In the unsettled years of England's War of the Roses, where a man stood on the issue of kingship could make his fortune... or end his life. Dick Shelton, a nobly-born lad, is on the cusp of manhood, and he is thrust bodily into this stew where allegiances shift under one's feet. Circumstances cause him to fall in with a gentlemaiden in boy's disguise. Until he learns of the deception, Dick is unaware that the young lady is an heiress whom his guardian Sir Daniel had kidnapped. And the introduction of an outlaw with a penchant for putting black arrows into the bodies of the men who had wronged him affords Dick a worrying hint - that Sir Daniel might have been the man that had murdered Dick's father! - Summary by Mark F. Smith
Genre(s): Action & Adventure Fiction, Historical Fiction, War & Military Fiction
Kidnapped
Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850 - 1894)
David Balfour, a lad of seventeen and newly orphaned, is directed to go and live with his rich uncle, the master of the estate of Shaws in the lowlands of Scotland near Edinburgh. His uncle, Ebenezer (as close a miser as Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge), is shocked to suddenly have his young relative descend on him and tries to rid himself of David with an arranged accident. Failing that, he pays the captain of a brig to kidnap David and sell him into slavery in Carolina.
A collision in the fog brings onboard the brig a survivor, Alan Breck Stewart, who is carrying a dangerous amount of gold on his person. David warns him of a plan by the brig's captain and crew to overpower him and seize the money, and then finds himself fighting alongside Alan in a battle royale. By good fortune, Alan is handy with a sword and they have access to the firearms locker, and the pair so completely defeat the crew that barely enough hands remain to sail her. Limping to port, she is holed by rocks, and David finds himself a castaway.
Being in Alan's presence continues to be a chancey business. David is talking to Colin Roy Campbell, the King's Factor who has been oppressing Alan's people, when the man is shot to death, and David is chased as an accomplice. The two "take to the heather" and barely survive near brushes with redcoats as they thread through the Trossachs and other highland ranges of Scotland. Only after an arduous weeks-long trek through territory where they are actively hunted do they emerge in the more settled districts around the river Forth, only to find guards upon the bridge. With no money remaining, they must somehow cross to Queensferry, find Ebenezer's lawyer, and lay claim to David's inheritance in order to send Alan safely on to France. (summary by Mark F. Smith)
Genre(s): Children's Fiction, Action & Adventure Fiction
Island Nights' Entertainments
Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850 - 1894)
A marvelous depiction of two sides of South Sea Islands' life through three separate tales. One, the experience of the incoming British keen to live free and exploit the innocent; the other the supernatural as perceived by Stevenson working in the lives of the natives. One tale carries the germ of the story of Madame Butterfly, since become a part of Western culture. Another is an extraordinary retelling of a German horror story transposed to a South Sea Island setting. The last is an effort of the pure Stevensonian imagination and there can be nothing better. - Summary by TONY ADDISON
Genre(s): Literary Fiction
The Master of Ballantrae
Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850 - 1894)
Heir to a noble Scottish house in the mid 18th century, the Master is a charming, clever, and resourceful villain whose daring but ill-advised schemes first alienate his patrimony and at last cost him his life. His younger brother, sweet-tempered and good but dull and unpopular, suffers at the Master's hands until his patience and courage win him limited ascendancy, but he is at last consumed with hatred and driven to madness and death by the strain of his many sufferings. The story is told from the point of view of a loyal servant with the occasional insertion of documents in the words of other eye-witnesses. The episodic plot, although exciting, serves mainly as a structure on which to hang superb character studies. The Master, whom one both admires and hates, bears comparison with Long John Silver, not to mention Milton's Satan, to whom the narrator explicitly likens him. The secondary characters—narrator, father, and wife—are deftly characterized, and (with the exception of the two children) even the minor characters are vivid and memorable.
Except for a few highly dialectal passages whose spelling insists on a Scottish burr, the reading eschews any false accent. (T. A. Copeland)
Genre(s): Action & Adventure Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
New Arabian Nights
Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850 - 1894)
New Arabian Nights is a collection of short stories which include Robert Louis Stevenson's earliest fiction as well as those considered his best work in the genre. The first and longest story stars Prince Florizel of Bohemia who appears in the later collection of stories "More New Arabian Nights: The Dynamiter." (Summary by Don W. Jenkins)
Genre(s): General Fiction, Short Stories
Olalla
Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850 - 1894)
"Olalla" was a "shilling shocker" written for the Christmas season in 1885, just before the publication of Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The nameless protagonist of this Gothic tale, a wounded soldier, goes to the Spanish countryside to recuperate. He finds himself enthralled by the beautiful Olalla, the daughter of his hostess, whose family conceals a terrible secret. (Summary by Elizabeth Klett)
Genre(s): General Fiction, Horror & Supernatural Fiction
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850 - 1894)
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a novella by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1886. London lawyer Utterson is driven to investigate Edward Hyde, the unlikely protégé of his friend Dr Henry Jekyll, suspecting the relationship to be founded on blackmail. The truth is worse than he could have imagined. Jekyll’s ‘full statement of the case’, the final chapter of the book, explores the idea of dual personality that led him to his experiments, and his inexorable and finally fatal descent into evil. (Summary by David Barnes)
Genre(s): Horror & Supernatural Fiction
Treasure Island
Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850 - 1894)
Treasure Island is an adventure novel, a thrilling tale of "buccaneers and buried gold." Traditionally considered a coming of age story, it is an adventure tale of superb atmosphere, character and action, and also a wry commentary on the ambiguity of morality—as seen in Long John Silver—unusual for children's literature then and now. (Summary from wikipedia.org)
Genre(s): Action & Adventure Fiction
The Wrong Box
Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850 - 1894) and Lloyd OSBOURNE (1868 - 1947)
The Wrong Box is a comedy about the ending of a tontine (a tontine is an arrangement whereby a number of young people subscribe to a fund which is then closed and invested until all but one of the subscribers have died. That last subscriber then receives the whole of the proceeds). The story involves the last two such survivors and their relations, a train crash, missing uncles, surplus dead bodies and innocent bystanders. A farce really. (Summary by AJM)
Genre(s): Humorous Fiction