Adventure fiction

“ The clang of steel, the shoutings of the captains, the stimulus of wild adventure—of these things, certainly, there has been no lack. There has been close about us for two hundred years the sweeping action of a story keyed higher than any fiction, more unbelievably bold, more incredibly keen in spirit. ”

“ So we drop the adventure story and turn to the novel. For the novel is a work of fiction in which the imagination and the intellect combine to express life in the form of a story and the imagination is always directed and controlled by the intellect. It is interested chiefly, not in romance or adventure, but in men and women as they are; it aims to show the motives and influences which govern human life, and the effects of personal choice upon character and destiny. Such is the true novel, [213] and as such it opens a wider and more interesting field than any other type of literature. ”

“ Very few books, either of Travel or Fiction, thus retain their place and continue so long in demand, amidst all the active competition of modern book-publishing, and the inference is not unreasonable that these volumes of Adventure in almost every corner of the earth, possess some lasting interest and vitality which makes them worthy of a permanent place in our literature. ”

“ There will always be a certain small percentage of persons who feel a burning curiosity about unknown outer space, and a burning desire to escape from the prison-house of the known and the real into those enchanted lands of incredible adventure and infinite possibilities which dreams open up to us, and which things like deep woods, fantastic urban towers, and flaming sunsets momentarily suggest. ”

“ In books of adventure the dividing line would fall between, on the one side, those stories where the hero is actuated by pure love of adventure or where the adventure is worth while in itself—as in "Foul play" ”

“ But surely we can do better at an interpretation than tales of hunting, of impossible heroisms, and of war. Or at least, we can protest against having these almost the sole interpretations of adventure [Pg 32] which are offered to children. The world of industry holds possibilities for adventure as thrilling as the world of high-colored romance. ”

“ There are holy saints and scoundrels among adventurers, but all the thousands I have known were fools of the romantic temperament, dealing with life as an artist does with canvas, to color it with fierce and vivid feeling, deep shade and radiant light, exulting in the passions of the sea, the terrors of the wilderness, the splendors of sunshine and starlight, the exaltation of battle, fire and hurricane. ”

“ This you would do unless you are one of the blessed few in whom the pure spirit of adventure is not dead.
True adventurers have never been plentiful. They who are set down in print as such have been mostly business men with newly invented methods. They have been out after the things they wanted—golden fleeces, holy grails, lady loves, treasure, crowns and fame. The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate. ”

“ And out of this newly found affinity with the Nature forces, the love of adventure thrills into being, together with the fine scorn of danger and the resolve to do that which we set out to do no matter what the cost or the peril. ”

“ You know what a powerful attraction strange adventures have for me, how I adore everything out of the common course, extravagant and dangerous, and with what avidity I devour novels and tales of travel; I doubt if there is on this earth a madder, more vagabond fancy than mine; and yet, by some curious fatality or other, I have never had an adventure, I have never made a journey. So far as I am concerned, the tour of the world means the tour of the town in which I live; I touch my horizon on every side; I am elbow to elbow with reality. ”

“ In these volumes the word adventure has been used in its broadest sense to cover not only strange happenings in strange places but also love and life and death—all things that have to do with the great adventure of living. ”

“ Few in number are the persons who will not gladly escape from humdrum routine by losing themselves in an exciting tale of adventure. The thrilling exploits in real life of the engineer, the explorer, the soldier of fortune, the pioneer in any field, hold us spellbound. Even more commonplace experiences are not without an element of the adventurous, for life itself is a great adventure. Many special feature stories in narrative form have much the same interest that is created by the fictitious tale of adventure. ”

“ At any rate, odd though it may sound to pretend that one feels on safer ground in tracing such an adventure as that of the hero of The Jolly Corner than in pursuing a bright career among pirates or detectives, I allow that composition to pass as the measure or limit, on my own part, of any achievable comfort in the ‘adventure-story’ ”

“ But under it all they were men, penetrating the land of desolation and mockery and silence, puny adventurers bent on colossal adventure, pitting themselves against the might of a world as remote and alien and pulseless as the abysses of space. ”

“ He had bitten his teeth all his life on the despair of adventure, but now it came upon him that life itself is the great adventure, and love the crown of it. Say he, loving a woman, went out to fight the dragons of the way. ”

“ Steadily hath the wanderer held on day after day, through fair and foul, into the dark waste, alone, like some atom upon the surface, and still breasting the wave, as if eternity was before her in those rolling seas.
Strange that the spirit of adventure should sustain men in such a hopeless-looking wilderness! That the desire of finding new worlds, or their greed after gold, should take them from all they hold dear in their own land. ”

“ The books of travel and discovery which I loved to read, had filled my mind with those stories of adventure which attend the explorer of unknown lands,—the wonders of scenery, and the strange pictures of life and people. There was in the career itself that blending of heroism and philanthropy, that mingled courage and humanity, which appealed to my heart by its very strongest sympathies; and I felt for these noble and devoted adventurers not less admiration than love. ”

“ Only the spirit of adventure had led him at twenty-one into the wild places of the world, where he saw existence from many angles, and in a rough outdoor life had brought to perfection physical powers which had been remarkable even in boyhood. ”

“ At any point of an adventure that adventure could be taken over from the very start, the experience holding all the thrill and wonder of the first time.
Cake could be had and eaten too. Tim, half-way down a rabbit-hole, could instantly find himself at the opening again, bursting with all the original excitement of trembling calculations. ”

“ While the thirst of adventure, the master-passion of the middle ages, prompted to any change of scene and circumstances, imagination portrayed the land in view with all that adventitious splendour which none—of all the many betrayers of the human mind—so well knows how to bestow as hope. ”

“ The temper of adventure is deeply ingrained in the new romance as in the old; the very word adventure is saturated with a sentiment very congenial to us both for better and worse; it quickens the hero in us and flatters the devil-may-care.
In its simplest form the temper of adventure has given us the profusion of pleasant verses which we know as the poetry of 'vagabondage' and 'the open road'. ”

“ From then on through centuries it was only men in whom the spirit of adventure was strong as life itself who reached our shores. Great adventurers, on they came, borne as they should be, by wind itself! Gallant figures, grim figures, moved by all sorts of lures and impulses, yet one and all stirred and led by the call of adventure, that cares nothing for ease of body or safety, for old, tried rules and set ways and trodden paths, but passionately for freedom and effort, for what is strange and dangerous and thrilling, for tasks that call on brain and body for quick, new decisions and acts. ”

“ Adventure had been the blood of his life. And out there, behind the green forests rolling away like the billows of an ocean, lay the greatest adventure of all. Once in those beloved forests covering almost the half of a continent, he would be willing to die if the world beat him. ”

“ It is the love of adventure, of excitement, a restlessness for something new, a desire for change. This impulse is controlled, shaped by circumstances of early life, by education and association; but the foundation of it at last is the thirst for excitement, the love of adventure. ”

“ These "yarns" of manly prowess and bold adventure are attractive because of their liveliness, and the change from one tale of adventure to another provides something to suit different moods or varying tastes. It is a capital book for a young reader, or a reader who retains a youthful fancy and a fresh appreciation, and seeks diversion from study or work. ”

“ ADVENTURERS
What is an adventurer? One who has adventures? Surely not. A person charged by a wild rhinoceros is having an adventure, yet however wild the animal, however wild the person, he is only somebody wishing himself at home, not an adventurer. In dictionaries the adventurer is “one who seeks his fortune in new and hazardous or perilous enterprises.” ”

“ My wild life, if it had made me feel older than my years, had given a hardihood and enterprise to my character, which heightened for me the enjoyment of every bold adventure, and made me feel a kind of ecstasy in every emergency, where danger and difficulty were present. I longed to be the skipper of my own craft, sweeping the seas at my own will ”

“ Imagination had thrown open her fairy realms, and in these our spirits ranged at will, each in turn serving as magic steed to the other, the more alert quickening the drowsy; the world from which our bodies were shut out became the playground of our fancy, which reveled there in frolicsome adventure. ”

“ By adventures, I understand events of a peculiar and unusual nature, which—as is scarcely ever the case in real adventures—have a sure outline, and so clearly defined a beginning, middle, and end, that they appear to the imagination like a work of art enclosed in a frame. ”

“ One becomes blasé to adventure, as one becomes blasé to all else which the world can give, save only the simple joys of home, and to taste the full relish of such an expedition one must approach it with the hot blood of youth still throbbing in one's veins. ”

“ He contrasts the 'novel of adventure,' the novel of character, and the dramatic novel. Properly speaking, this is not a classification of radically different species, but an indication of the different sources of interest upon which a novelist may draw. 'Adventure' need not exclude 'character.' A perfect novel might accept, with a change of name, Mr. ”

“ It represents, among other things, a hunting pattern of interest. “Adventure” is what the young boy wants, and stories of adventure. Hunting trips are enticing; they are the survival of natural life. All sports are of the hunting pattern; there is a contest of skill, daring, and cunning. ”

“ Incident succeeds incident, and adventure is piled upon adventure, and at the end the reader, be he boy or man, will have experienced breathless enjoyment in this romantic story describing many adventures in the Rockies and among the Indians. ”

“ Although by 1851 tales of adventure had begun to seem antiquated, they had rendered a large service to the course of literature: they had removed the stigma, for the most part, from the word novel. ”

“ So, then, I have nothing to joke Ferdinand about! I, too, have met with a pleasant adventure. Adventure!—why do I use the silly word? There is nothing of adventure in a gentle attraction which draws man to man. Our social life, our false relations—those are adventures, those are monstrosities ”

“ That would be an adventure worth trying! Maybe we are not so deeply permeated with the culture of to-day that we could not throw it off. Surely the spirit of the heroes strikes home to our hearts as we read of them in the ancient books. ”

“ There is a sense of strain about the whole thing—the style, as well as the plot, is artificial.”
“The quality of the particular adventure is delicate and perilous and the book’s evasion of pitfalls is not less admirable than its more positive qualities. The critical sense of the reader is stilled by the hypnotic and engrossing nature of the narrative. ”

“ I had the firm conviction that, if I went about looking for adventure, adventure would meet me halfway. It is a theory of mine that one always gets what one wants. ”

“ Adventure's not a thing that you find yourself. It's something that comes and finds you—once in a life-time. I'll bet that in three months of trying you couldn't, to save your life, have a real adventure in this town—I mean an adventure out of the ordinary. Elopements and automobile smash-ups are barred."
"How much will you bet?" asked Judson Green. ”

“ The novel should be a novel; that is, a narrative of strange and curious events, a story of unusual happenings. The novel of adventure is the only genuine, legitimate novel. Let him who wants the history of art write books on the history of art ”

“ That is why tales of actual adventure, such as the records of explorers, hunters, and the like, are so worth while for boys. They feed the imagination while, at the same time, keeping touch with the real. ”

“ The tale of adventure as told by the chief actor is the delight of the fireside and entrances old and young alike when delivered by a skilful narrator. Other tales, those of tradition and hearsay, are seldom offered as it is the custom for one to narrate his own experiences, a rather high ideal of truthfulness being entertained. Of course, there are historical traditions, but they are usually given in brief without much life. Adventures with animals and of the hunt have a place, but are of far less social significance. ”