This biography looks at the man, the period and its significance in Scottish history by brushing away the dust of legend that blurs the image of the young pretender. The author makes clear how Charles Edward became the Bonnie Prince Charlie of legend and folk memory. As the biography is based almost entirely on contemporary sources, Charles emerges directly from 18th century Europe with all its political and dynastic intrigue and the insights into familiar and unfamiliar events which emerge explain the unwavering appeal that the prince has exerted for so long.

Few writers have inspired such affection ain their contemporaries, and in later generations of readers, as Robert Louis Stevenson. And yet, difficult though it is to resist the generous, enchanting personality tht shines out from his letters, it is even harder to define it. A descendant of Calvinists who spent his youth in a Bohemian milieu, a lover of his native Scotland who became committed to exile, a man whose humorous enjoyment of human foibles did not preclude an awareness of the nightmarish background against which some lives are lived - Stevenson was highly complex, with a deep sense of moral ambiguities which runs throughout his work. He could have no abler or more sympathetic biographer than David Daiches, Professor of English Studies at Sussex University, and author of an earlier book on the master (Robert Louis Stevenson: A Revaluation) as well as of biographies of Burns and Scott in this series. In a brilliant and absorbing text, Professor Daiches traces Stevenson's life, from his childhood and early manhood in Scotland (whose scenery and townscapes inspired his work throughout his life), through his visits to France and the United States, and on to his las years in Samoa. Professor Daiches also discusses Stevenson's writings, explaining how he harnessed the disparate elements in his nature so that they fertilized his imagination while he developed his gifts as a romancer, essayist, poet and historical novelist, from his early travel books and Treasure Island - the greatest of all adventure stories for boys - to the tragic conflict so superbly realised in Weir of Hermiston, the masterpiece which he did not live to complete.

Book and jacket rate fine/like new used better than very good not quite mint.