The Black Arrow

by Stevenson, Robert Louis; Hoppenstand, Gary

• ISBN13: 9780451529169
• ISBN10: 0451529162
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-12-02
• Publisher: Signet Classics

Summary

Set in England during the Wars of the Roses, this swashbuckling historical novel tells of young man betrayed by his brutal guardian and forced to seek the help of a mysterious society. Brimming with action, adventure, suspense, and romance, it is a classic portrait of England during one of its most tumultuous eras.

Author Biography

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was born in Edinburgh. In the brief span of forty-four years, dogged by poor health, he made an enormous contribution to English literature with his novels, poetry, and essays. The son of upper-middle-class parents, he was the victim of lung trouble from birth, and spent a sheltered childhood surrounded by constant care. The balance of his life was taken up with his unremitting devotion to work, and a search for a cure to his illness that took him all over the world. His travel essays were publihsed widely, and his short fiction was gathered in many volumes. His first full-length work of fiction, Treasure Island, was published in 1883 and brought him great fame, which only increased with the publication of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). He followed with the Scottish romances Kidnapped (1886) and The Master of Ballantrae (1889). In 1888 he set out with his family for the South Seas, traveling to the leper colony at Molokai, and finally settling in Samoa, where he died.

Gary Hoppenstand is a professor in the Department of American Thought and Language at Michigan State University. He has researched and published widely in the areas of popular culture and popular fiction studies, and he edited the Penguin Classics editions of Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda/Rupert of Hentzau and A.E.W. Mason's The Four Feathers. He is the past president of the Popular Culture Association, and the current editor of The Journal of Popular Culture.

Table of Contents

Prologue	p. 3
The Two Lads
At the Sign of the Sun in Kettley	p. 19
In the Fen	p. 27
The Fen Ferry	p. 33
A Greenwood Company	p. 40
"Bloody as the Hunter"	p. 47
To the Day's End	p. 55
The Hooded Face	p. 61
The Moat House
Dick Asks Questions	p. 70
The Two Oaths	p. 78
The Room over the Chapel	p. 85
The Passage	p. 91
How Dick Changed Sides	p. 96
My Lord Foxham
The House by the Shore	p. 105
A Skirmish in the Dark	p. 112
Saint Bride's Cross	p. 118
The Good Hope	p. 121
The Good Hope (continued)	p. 129
The Good Hope (concluded)	p. 135
The Disguise
The Den	p. 141
"In Mine Enemies' House"	p. 148
The Dead Spy	p. 156
In the Abbey Church	p. 163
Earl Risingham	p. 172
Arblaster Again	p. 176
Crookback
The Shrill Trumpet	p. 186
The Battle of Shoreby	p. 193
The Battle of Shoreby (concluded)	p. 199
The Sack of Shoreby	p. 203
Night in the Woods--Alicia Risingham	p. 212
Night in the Woods (concluded)--Dick and Joan	p. 219
Dick's Revenge	p. 228
Conclusion	p. 232
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