Adventure Literature

Adventure factors into the plots of much 19th-century British fiction, but what sets the adventure literature genre apart is its charismatic heroes, terrible adversaries, and plotting that emphasizes action over character development. The form of Victorian adventure fiction is indebted to the exoticism, excitement, and danger central to the plots of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Sir Walter Scott’s historical romances beginning with Waverley (1814). This genre came into its own during the era of New Imperialism (1875–1914), and literary critics typically credit two fictions with inspiring the popularity of adventure during this period: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (serialized in Young Folks 1 October 1881 to 28 January 1882) and H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines (1885) and She (1887). These thrilling, wild-minded fictions gained a foothold in the popular imagination which continues into the present. Literary and cultural studies scholarship concerned with adventure literature tends to focus on this genre’s contributions to the discourses of aesthetics, imperialism, children’s literature, print history, gender and sexuality, and the history of science.