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From Booklist*Starred Review* Ekirch, a history professor at Virginia Tech University, reanimates a crime dating back to the early eighteenth century, the crime that inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped. James Annesley, the heir to fiveMoreFrom Booklist*Starred Review* Ekirch, a history professor at Virginia Tech University, reanimates a crime dating back to the early eighteenth century, the crime that inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped. James Annesley, the heir to five aristocratic titles, had a startlingly hard early existence. His father, Arthur Annesley, the fourth Baron Altham, turned James (called Jemmy) into the streets of Dublin to fend for himself at the age of eight. Jemmy turned up at his father’s funeral four years later. Shortly after, his uncle had him kidnapped and shipped to Delaware, where he spent the next 13 years living as an indentured servant. The term kidnapping, Ekirch explains, originated in the seventeenth century to describe seizing a child with the intent of transporting him or her to the colonies to work as an indentured servant. Kidnapping was a misdemeanor under British common law- horse theft was a felony punishable by death. Jemmy’s escape, passage to London, and pursuit of his birthright, leading eventually to his vindication at the end of a famous criminal trial, form the backbone of this story. Annesley had to prove his identity with virtually no evidence: he had no scars or distinguishing birthmarks- written records of his birth were nonexistent- and the science of fingerprints, photographs, and DNA was far in the future. Ekirch also illuminates such subjects as the position of wives and mistresses in eighteenth-century England- the causes of the sharp rise in mortality that threatened the great peerages- and the realities of indentured servitude in the colonies. Ekirch out-kidnaps Stevenson in this thrilling, thoroughly documented story. A perfect mix of true crime and real-life adventure. --Connie Fletcher Birthright: The True Story of the Kidnapping of Jemmy Annesley by A. Roger Ekirch
