Ten thousand free copies of Scots classic to kidnap City of Literature

Published on Monday 20 June 2005 02:09

ROBERT Louis Stevenson's classic adventure Kidnapped has been chosen as Edinburgh's Book of the City, The Scotsman can reveal.

Ten thousand copies of the novel will be distributed free across Edinburgh in cafes, train stations or even taxis, with a sticker saying "I'm free, take me home and read me", in an effort to get the entire city reading a single text.

The project, called One Book One City, will be officially launched next spring.

The reading plan is billed as the flagship of Edinburgh's new status as UNESCO City of Literature.

Several versions of the tale will be on offer - from a simplified version for children to a Kidnapped comic book. Edinburgh City Libraries have pledged to stock extra copies.

It is set to become an annual project, but Kidnapped was described as the easy first choice over other candidates that included Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, set among Leith drug addicts, and Muriel Spark's classic Edinburgh story The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Sophy Dale, the City of Literature project director, said the book was a cross-over story that appealed to both children and adults.

"Various books were mentioned that wouldn't have worked at all. It's harder to do the Trainspotting primary school teachers' pack," she observed.

Kidnapped, written 130 years ago, centres on the adventures of a young David Balfour and the swashbuckling Jacobite Alan Breck Stewart. The story has become the source of films, plays, a recent BBC TV series and even a Marvel comic book. The online bookseller Amazon lists 230 different editions.

In 1998, Seattle, in Washington State, US, launched the idea of getting an entire city to read a single book. The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks was the first choice.

Chicago followed with the US classic To Kill a Mockingbird, and hundreds of books have since been read by scores of US cities. An English city has also signed up - with Bristol choosing another Stevenson book, Treasure Island, in its first year, before moving to John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids.

Jenny Brown, the City of Literature organiser, said: "It has been a big boost for reading in other cities.

"We are looking at a way of letting readers choose the next book.

"It's an Edinburgh author, it's a gateway kind of book, it opens out from this area but the plot leads so many places."

Tom Devine, the historian, recently named Kidnapped as his favourite book, saying it could appeal to all ages.