Outlander

800 Pages·1991·3.68 MB·English

by  Diana Gabaldon

Contents
Title page
Dedication
Epigraph
Praise for Outlander
Acknowledgments
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part Two
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Part Three
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Part Four
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Part Five
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Part Six
Chapter 34
Part Seven
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Excerpt from Dragonfly in Amber
An Intervew with Diana Gabaldon
Reader’s Guide
Copyright Page
To the Memory of My Mother,
Who Taught Me to Read—
Jacqueline Sykes Gabaldon
People disappear all the time. Ask any policeman. Better yet, ask a
journalist. Disappearances are bread-and-butter to journalists.
Young girls run away from home. Young children stray from their parents
and are never seen again. Housewives reach the end of their tether and take
the grocery money and a taxi to the station. International financiers change
their names and vanish into the smoke of imported cigars.
Many of the lost will be found, eventually, dead or alive. Disappearances,
after all, have explanations.
Usually.
HIGH PRAISE FOR
DIANA GABALDON AND
OUTLANDER
“GREAT FUN…marvelous and fantastic adventures, romance, sex…
perfect escape reading.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Gabaldon fashions deeply probed characters and a richly textured
setting…history comes deliciously alive on the page.”
—Daily News (New York)
“AN OLD-FASHIONED PAGE-TURNER…a mix of history, romance and
adventure.”
—The Cincinnati Post
“STUNNING.”
—Los Angeles Daily News
“A feast for ravenous readers of eighteenth-century Scottish history,
heroism and romance.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“INTRIGUING…satisfying…when the last page is turned it’s difficult to
let the characters go.”
—Daily Press (Newport News)
“INGENIOUS…an exuberant potpourri of romance and historical
adventure.”
—Anniston Star
“Gabaldon shows not only a talent with factual detail but also a flair for
creating memorable characters and some striking sex scenes.”
—Locus
“HIGHLY IMAGINATIVE AND SUSPENSEFUL…Gabaldon’s ambitious
first novel gives the reader a well-researched view of 18th-century life as
seen through the eyes of a 20th-century woman.”
—Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
“BRILLIANTLY COLORED…Diana Gabaldon is a born storyteller who
will leave you breathless…She transports readers into the era with the ease
of a master historian and then brings to life characters so real you’ll believe
they truly existed.”
—Rave Reviews
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank:
Jackie Cantor, Editor par excellence, whose consistent enthusiasm had so
much to do with getting this story between covers; Perry Knowlton, Agent
of impeccable judgment, who said, “Go ahead and tell the story the way it
should be told; we’ll worry about cutting it later;” my husband, Doug
Watkins, who, despite occasionally standing behind my chair, saying, “If it’s
set in Scotland, why doesn’t anybody say ‘Hoot, mon?’ ” also spent a good
deal of time chasing children and saying “Mommy is writing! Leave her
alone!”; my daughter Laura, for loftily informing a friend, “My mother
writes books!”; my son Samuel, who, when asked what Mommy does for a
living, replied cautiously, “Well, she watches her computer a lot;” my
daughter Jennifer, who says, “Move over, Mommy; it’s my turn to type!”;
Jerry O’Neill, First Reader and Head Cheerleader, and the rest of my
personal Gang of Four—Janet McConnaughey, Margaret J. Campbell, and
John L. Myers—who read everything I write, and thereby keep me writing;
Dr. Gary Hoff, for verifying the medical details and kindly explaining the
proper way to reset a dislocated shoulder; T. Lawrence Tuohy, for details of
military history and costuming; Robert Riffle, for explaining the difference
between betony and bryony, listing every kind of forget-me-not known to
man, and verifying that aspens really do grow in Scotland; Virginia Kidd,
for reading early parts of the manuscript and encouraging me to go on with
it; Alex Krislov, for co-hosting with other systems operators the most
extraordinary electronic literary cocktail-party-cum-writer’s-incubator in
the world, the CompuServe Literary Forum; and the many members of
LitForum—John Stith, John Simpson, John L. Myers, Judson Jerome,
Angelia Dorman, Zilgia Quafay, and the rest—for Scottish folk songs, Latin
love poetry, and for laughing (and crying) in the right places.
ART NE
P O
Inverness, 1945