Este sitio utiliza cookies para ofrecer nuestros servicios, mejorar el rendimiento, análisis y (si no estás registrado) publicidad. Al usar LibraryThing reconoces que has leído y comprendido nuestros términos de servicio y política de privacidad. El uso del sitio y de los servicios está sujeto a estas políticas y términos.
thesmellofbooks: Young men in dire straits on the open seas, a background of oppression, and historical richness are a few of the elements these books share. They are both ripping good yarns.
themulhern: I have a theory that each book in the Felix Brooker series is an homage to some work of Robert Louis Stevenson's. This one is clearly an homage to "Kidnapped"; there's the kidnapping, of course, but also the shipwreck, the somewhat mysterious parentage, the nefarious relative, the stalwart and canny friend.… (más)
Narra las aventuras de David Balfour, un muchacho huérfano de diecisiete años cuyo innoble tío intenta, a toda costa, desposeerle de su herencia. David y un temerario compañero se verán envueltos en numerosas intrigas, peligrosas huidas y luchas desesperadas por sobrevivir en el naufragio del bergantín "Covenant" en las costas escocesas. Novela de acción trepidante, considerada por Henry James como el mejor libro de Stevenson. ( )
David Balfour, un muchacho atrevido y orgulloso como el Jim de La isla del Tesoro, se ve envuelto en una doble serie de aventuras: las producidas por su propia situación personal un huérfano a quien le han usurpado la herencia y las derivadas de su encuentro con Alan Breck, que lo sumergen en el trasfondo sociopolitico de las secuelas de la guerra civil inglesa del siglo XVIII, mientras se inicia en su nueva condición de adulto. Al interés del relato hay que sumar la belleza de la prosa limpia y musical de Stevenson, de quien dijo Chesterton: Fue un hombre universal, y dijo cosas sensatas no solo sobre todos los asuntos, sino, dentro de lo lógicamente posible, en todos los sentidos. ( )
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
MY DEAR CHARLES BAXTER:
If you ever read this tale, you will likely ask yourself more questions than I should care to answer: as for instance how the Appin murder has come to fall in the year 1751, how the Torran rocks have crept so near to Earraid, or why the printed trial is silent as to all that touches David Balfour. These are nuts beyond my ability to crack. But if you tried me on the point of Alan's guilt or innocence, I think I could defend the reading of the text. To this day you will find the tradition of Appin clear in Alan's favour. If you inquire, you may even hear that the descendants of "the other man" who fired the shot are in the country to this day. But that other man's name, inquire as you please, you shall not hear; for the Highlander values a secret for itself and for the congenial exercise of keeping it I might go on for long to justify one point and own another indefensible; it is more honest to confess at once how little I am touched by the desire of accuracy. This is no furniture for the scholar's library, but a book for the winter evening school-room when the tasks are over and the hour for bed draws near; and honest Alan, who was a grim old fire-eater in his day has in this new avatar no more desperate purpose than to steal some young gentleman's attention from his Ovid, carry him awhile into the Highlands and the last century, and pack him to bed with some engaging images to mingle with his dreams.
As for you, my dear Charles, I do not even ask you to like this tale. But perhaps when he is older, your son will; he may then be pleased to find his father's name on the fly-leaf; and in the meanwhile it pleases me to set it there, in memory of many days that were happy and some (now perhaps as pleasant to remember) that were sad. If it is strange for me to look back from a distance both in time and space on these bygone adventures of our youth, it must be stranger for you who tread the same streets--who may to-morrow open the door of the old Speculative, where we begin to rank with Scott and Robert Emmet and the beloved and inglorious Macbean--or may pass the corner of the close where that great society, the L. J. R., held its meetings and drank its beer, sitting in the seats of Burns and his companions. I think I see you, moving there by plain daylight, beholding with your natural eyes those places that have now become for your companion a part of the scenery of dreams. How, in the intervals of present business, the past must echo in your memory! Let it not echo often without some kind thoughts of your friend,
R.L.S. SKERRYVORE, BOURNEMOUTH.
Primeras palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
I will begin the story of my adventures with a certain morning early in the month of June, the year of grace 1751, when I took the key for the last time out of the door of my father's house.
Citas
Últimas palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
The hand of Providence brought me in my drifting to the very doors of the British Linen Company's bank.
In the fear of which, and lest any one should complain of scurvy usage, he hastens to protest that all went well with both, in the limited and human sense of the word "well"' that whatever befell them, it was not dishonor, and whatever failed them, they were not found wanting to themselves.
Novela de acción trepidante, considerada por Henry James como el mejor libro de Stevenson. ( )