Adventure novel: Encyclopedia - Adventure novel

Adventure novel

The adventure novel is a literary genre that has adventure, an exciting undertaking involving risk and physical danger, as its main theme. Adventure has been a common theme since the earliest days of written fiction.

Indeed, the standard plot of Mediaeval romances was a series of adventures. Following a plot framework as old as Heliodorus, and so durable as to be still alive in Hollywood movies, a hero would undergo a first set of adventures before he met his lady. A separation would follow, with a second set of adventures leading to a final reunion. Variations kept the genre alive.

From the mid 19th century onwards, when mass literacy grew, adventure became a popular subgenre of fiction. Examples of that period include Jules Verne, H. Rider Haggard (King Solomon's Mines, She), Sax Rohmer, Jules Verne and Edgar Wallace.

See also

• Men's adventure, also known as the sweats, a genre of pulp magazine featuring tales of exotic adventure and wartime heroism.
• Picaresque novel
• War novel

Category: Literary genres

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Adventure novel", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki