Everyone knows the classic Stevenson tales - Jekyll and Hyde, Kidnapped, Treasure Island - but this would rank on the second level, probably along with The Black Arrow. It's a surprisingly dark and bleak tale with a strong central idea - a Scottish lord has two sons, a wastrel and a more reliable type, and during the 1745 rebellion it's decided one should remain loyal while the other joins Bonnie Prince Charlie; they flip a coin and the wastrel gets to go Jacobite. Everyone misses him and thinks he's the better brother, and when he comes back he sets about psychologically torturing the "good" brother.
If this were an everyday tale it would be clear-cut good and evil and for a long time it seems to be that, with the Master (the wastrel, Jamie) behaving appallingly - but when the bad brother chases the good to the American colonies, the good brother snaps and starts taunting, tormenting the bad brother.
This might have been a better book had the brother (Henry) snapped earlier. Because for a lot of it he is frustratingly passive, paying off Jamie's mistress, and taking a lot of crap, including from his dad and wife who both adore Jamie. Also passive are their father, the steward who narrates the tail, and even the wife.
However Jamie is a bright, vivacious character - an evil little turd to be sure, but he's always doing something, turning pirate, or setting up business in India, or trying to blackmail his brother, who he becomes obssessed with. A very strong villain who has interesting adventures (piracy, burying treasure in America etc). It's a genuinely different sort of adventure tale, very different in tone to the 1953 Errol Flynn version.
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