{{Short description|Fiction in which an adventure forms the main storyline}} {{Redirect|Adventure story|the play|Adventure Story (play){{!}}''Adventure Story'' (play)}} [[File:ThrillingAdventuresVol2No3.jpg|thumb|324x324px|Adventure [[novel]]s and [[short stories]] were popular subjects for American [[pulp magazine]]s.]] {{Literature}} '''Adventure fiction''' is a type of fiction that usually presents danger, or gives the reader a sense of excitement. Some adventure fiction also satisfies the literary definition of [[Romance (prose fiction)#Definition|romance fiction]].<ref>"Essay on Romance", ''Prose Works'' volume vi, p. 129, quoted in "Introduction" to Walter Scott's ''Quentin Durward'', ed. Susan Maning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, p. xxv.</ref>
== History == In the introduction to the ''Encyclopedia of Adventure Fiction'', Critic [[Don D'Ammassa]] defines the genre as follows:
{{blockquote|.. An adventure is an event or series of events that happens outside the course of the protagonist's ordinary life, usually accompanied by danger, often by physical action. Adventure stories almost always move quickly, and the pace of the plot is at least as important as characterization, setting, and other elements of creative work.<ref name="d'ammasssa">D'Ammassa, Don. ''Encyclopedia of Adventure Fiction''. Facts on File Library of World Literature, Infobase Publishing, 2009 (pp. vii-viii).</ref>}}
D'Ammassa argues that adventure stories make the element of danger the focus; hence he argues that [[Charles Dickens]]'s novel ''[[A Tale of Two Cities]]'' is an adventure novel because the protagonists are in constant danger of being imprisoned or killed, whereas Dickens's ''[[Great Expectations]]'' is not because "Pip's encounter with the convict is an adventure, but that scene is only a device to advance the main plot, which is not truly an adventure."<ref name="d'ammasssa" />
Adventure has been a common [[theme (literature)|theme]] since the earliest days of written fiction. Indeed, the standard plot of Heliodorus, and so durable as to be still alive in [[Adventure film|Hollywood movies]], a [[hero]] would undergo a first set of adventures before he met his lady. A separation would follow, with the second set of adventures leading to a final reunion.{{citation needed|date=October 2025}}
Variations kept the genre alive. From the mid-19th century onwards, when mass literacy grew, adventure became a popular subgenre of fiction. Although not exploited to its fullest, adventure has seen many changes over the years – from being constrained to stories of knights in armor to stories of high-tech espionage.
Examples of that period include [[Sir Walter Scott]], [[Alexandre Dumas, père]],<ref>Green, Martin Burgess. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=qMT7JUJybmcC Seven Types of Adventure Tale: An Etiology of A Major Genre]''. Penn State Press, 1991 (pp. 71–2).</ref> [[Jules Verne]], the [[Brontë Sisters]], [[Rudyard Kipling]], [[Sir H. Rider Haggard]], [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]], [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]], [[Victor Hugo]],<ref>Taves, Brian. ''The Romance of Adventure: The Genre of Historical Adventure Movies''.University Press of Mississippi, 1993 (p. 60)</ref> [[Emilio Salgari]], [[Karl May]], [[Louis Henri Boussenard]], [[Thomas Mayne Reid]], [[Sax Rohmer]], [[A. Merritt]], [[Talbot Mundy]], [[Edgar Wallace]], and [[Robert Louis Stevenson]].
Adventure [[novel]]s and [[short stories]] were popular subjects for American [[pulp magazine]]s, which dominated American popular fiction between the [[Progressive Era]] and the 1950s.<ref name="ls">[[Lee Server|Server, Lee]]. ''Danger is My Business: An Illustrated History of the Fabulous Pulp Magazines.'' Chronicle Books, 1993 (pp. 49–60).</ref> Several pulp magazines such as ''[[Adventure (magazine)|Adventure]]'', ''[[Argosy (magazine)|Argosy]]'', ''[[Blue Book (magazine)|Blue Book]]'', ''[[Top-Notch Magazine|Top-Notch]]'', and ''[[Short Stories (magazine)|Short Stories]]'' specialized in this genre. Notable pulp adventure writers included [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]], [[Talbot Mundy]], [[Theodore Roscoe]], [[Johnston McCulley]], [[Arthur O. Friel]], [[Harold Lamb]], [[Carl Richard Jacobi|Carl Jacobi]], [[George F. Worts]],<ref name="ls"/> [[Georges Surdez]], [[H. Bedford-Jones]], and [[J. Allan Dunn]].<ref>[[Frank M. Robinson|Robinson, Frank M.]] and Davidson, Lawrence. ''Pulp Culture – The Art of Fiction Magazines''. Collectors Press Inc. 2007 (pp. 33–48).</ref> == Overlap with other genres == Adventure fiction often overlaps with other genres, notably [[war novel]]s, [[crime novel]]s, [[detective novel]]s, [[sea story|sea stories]], [[Robinsonade]]s, [[spy stories]] (as in the works of [[John Buchan]], [[Eric Ambler]] and [[Ian Fleming]]), [[science fiction]], [[fantasy]], ([[Robert E. Howard]] and [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] both combined the [[secondary world]] story with the adventure novel)<ref>[[David Pringle|Pringle, David]]. ''The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy''. London, Carlton pp. 33–5</ref> and [[Western fiction|Western]]s. Not all books within these genres are adventures. Adventure fiction takes the setting and premise of these other genres, but the fast-paced plot of an adventure focuses on the actions of the hero within the setting. {{According to whom|date=June 2015}} With a few notable exceptions (such as [[Baroness Orczy]], [[Leigh Brackett]] and [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]])<ref>[[Richard Lupoff|Richard A. Lupoff]].''Master of Adventure: The Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs''. University of Nebraska Press, 2005 (pp.194, 247)</ref> adventure fiction as a genre has been largely dominated by male writers, though female writers are now becoming common.
== For children == Adventure stories written specifically for children began in the 19th century. Early examples include [[Johann David Wyss]]'s ''[[The Swiss Family Robinson]]'' (1812), [[Frederick Marryat|Frederick Marryat's]] ''[[The Children of the New Forest]]'' (1847), and [[Harriet Martineau|Harriet Martineau's]] ''The Peasant and the Prince'' (1856).<ref>[[Peter Hunt (literary critic)|Hunt, Peter]]. (Editor). ''Children's literature: an illustrated history''. Oxford University Press, 1995. {{ISBN|0-19-212320-3}} (pp. 98–100)</ref> The Victorian era saw the development of the genre, with [[William Henry Giles Kingston|W. H. G. Kingston]], [[Robert Michael Ballantyne|R. M. Ballantyne]], and [[G. A. Henty]] specializing in the production of adventure fiction for boys.<ref name="oxford">Butts, Dennis, "Adventure Books" in [[Jack Zipes|Zipes, Jack]], ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children's Literature''. Volume One. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006. {{ISBN|978-0-19-514656-1}} (pp. 12–16).</ref> This inspired writers who normally catered to adult audiences to essay such works, such as [[Robert Louis Stevenson]] writing ''[[Treasure Island]]'' for a child readership.<ref name="oxford" /> In the years after the First World War, writers such as [[Arthur Ransome]] developed the adventure genre by setting the adventure in Britain rather than distant countries, while [[Geoffrey Trease]], [[Rosemary Sutcliff]]<ref>Hunt, 1995, (pp. 208–9)</ref> and [[Esther Forbes]] brought a new sophistication to the historical adventure novel.<ref name="oxford" /> Modern writers such as [[Mildred D. Taylor]] (''[[Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry]]'') and [[Philip Pullman]] (the [[Sally Lockhart]] novels) have continued the tradition of the historical adventure.<ref name="oxford" /> The modern children's adventure novel sometimes deals with controversial issues like [[terrorism]] ([[Robert Cormier]], ''[[After the First Death]]'' (1979))<ref name="oxford" /> and warfare in the [[Third World]] ([[Peter Dickinson]], ''AK'' (1990)).<ref name="oxford" />
==See also== {{Portal|Novels}} *[[Action fiction]] *[[Action-adventure comics]] *''[[Adventure Comics]]'' *[[Adventure gamebook|Adventure gamebook (interactive)]] *[[Crime fiction]] *[[Detective fiction]] *[[Lost world (genre)]] *[[Men's adventure]] *[[Military fiction]] *[[Nautical fiction]] *[[Outdoor literature]] *[[Picaresque novel]] *[[Robinsonade]] *[[Subterranean fiction]] *[[Spy fiction]] *[[Swashbuckler]] *[[Thriller (genre)]] *[[Voyages extraordinaires]] *[[War novel]] *[[Western (genre)]]
== Notes == {{Reflist}}
== External links == *{{Wikisource inline|Category:Adventure|Adventure}}
{{Fiction writing}} {{Authority control}}
[[Category:Action genres]] [[Category:Adventure fiction| ]] [[Category:Literary genres]]