“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…”  Dr Seuss, 1990 – Oh, the Places You’ll Go! (1990)  

The stories of the adventure fiction genre characteristically detail epic journeys, perilous quests, or missions, generally peppered with dangerous obstacles and requiring intelligence, resourcefulness, and bold and confident decisions.  

Adventure stories emerged as a popular genre from the initiation of the earliest forms of literary fiction. This is evident if we consider one of the oldest pieces of fiction written in English during the Middle Ages—Beowulf. 

Although there were the likes of Robin Hood already published, adventure as a genre really didn’t commence until 1719 when Daniel Defoe published The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe… Written by Himself. This particular story, one of isolation, strength and masculine survivalism in an exotic locale, loaded with self-examination and reflection was immediately popular. The appearance of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), which was another tale of shipwreck, resilience, and island life was political and satirical in nature. It did not enjoy the same popularity as Robinson Crusoe but added to the burgeoning adventure genre. 

These early books were not specifically conjured up for children, those really only began in the 19th century. Early examples include Johann David Wyss's The Swiss Family Robinson (1812), Frederick Marryat's The Children of the New Forest (1847), and Harriet Martineau's The Peasant and the Prince (1856). 

Pivotally the British industrial revolution in the 1830s brought about a utilitarianism which was instrumental in the rise of the didactic tale. American Samuel Goodrich (1793-1860) writing under the pseudonym Peter Parley, reacted against the fanciful interest in fairy stories and began to write books and periodical articles which reinforced ‘reality’ and ‘usefulness’. The exotic, ‘frontier’ environment of early American was the setting for his tales of strength, practicality, and courage. For the English it was the expansion of the Empire that set the scenes and fueled the British public’s interest in thrilling deeds in faraway places, normally within the hegemony of British imperialism. This in turn facilitated a cultural climate where the young heroes and heroines resonated with readers’ perceptions of themselves.  

Adventure fiction was inextricably linked to boys originally because of the survivalist nature of adventure and early societal perceptions of females. Today, however, the genre is written for and by females as much as males and is still such a crucial device in literature as to become a sub-genre of most other genres from romance to dystopian.