Catriona: A Sequel to Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson, Illustrated by W.R. Hole R.S.A. (Cassell and Company, 1898 Reprint)

This Cassell and Company edition of Catriona (1898 reprint of the 1893 first edition ) is of interest to collectors of Robert Louis Stevenson, Victorian adventure fiction, and 19th century illustrated editions.

About: Good copy in the original blue pictorial cloth binding; front board with the dramatic shipboard rescue scene illustration in blue, grey and yellow-green — figures on a raft alongside a vessel in stormy seas; rear board with the Cassell & Co. Ltd. publisher's device to centre; spine with gilt lettering, some fading; pages with age toning consistent with the period; W.R. Hole frontispiece illustration present and clean — “She dropped me one of her curtseys, which were extraordinary taking”; binding firm with some rubbing to extremities and light wear to corners; no dust jacket — pictorial cloth binding as issued; a handsome and characterful Victorian copy of Stevenson's sequel to Kidnapped.

Details:

• Title: Catriona — A Sequel to “Kidnapped” — Being Memoirs of the Further Adventures of David Balfour at Home and Abroad
• Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
• Illustrator: W.R. Hole, R.S.A. (sixteen illustrations)
• Publisher: Cassell and Company, Limited — London, Paris & Melbourne
• Publication Date: 1898 reprint of the 1893 first edition
• Printing: Twenty-Ninth Thousand
• Binding: Hardcover — original blue pictorial cloth, as issued without dust jacket
• Condition: Good (rubbing to extremities; light wear to corners; spine gilt faded; pages with age toning; frontispiece clean)

Synopsis: Cassell and Company, London 1893, Twenty-Ninth Thousand; sixteen illustrations by W.R. Hole R.S.A.; original blue pictorial cloth with dramatic shipboard rescue scene to front board; W.R. Hole frontispiece present and clean; appealing to collectors of Stevenson, Victorian adventure fiction, and 19th century illustrated editions.

Review: Catriona, first published by Cassell in 1893 as a sequel to the enormously popular Kidnapped (1886), continues the adventures of David Balfour — now embroiled in the aftermath of the Appin Murder and the political intrigues of Jacobite Scotland — and introduces the spirited Catriona MacGregor, daughter of the notorious James More. Stevenson considered it among his finest works, and the novel's combination of historical adventure, romance, and psychological depth has secured its place as a significant achievement in Victorian fiction. The sixteen illustrations by W.R. Hole, who also illustrated the original Kidnapped, give this edition a particular visual authority. The Twenty-Ninth Thousand printing in the original Cassell pictorial cloth — with its vivid shipboard rescue scene — is a handsome and genuinely period copy of one of Stevenson's most accomplished novels.