Outlander - Diana Gabaldon [0]
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