What about Rafael Sabatini?

Do books like Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk count?

I read (The Banner Of The Bull) By ((Rafael Sabatini)),It was a Three part story about a Italian leader that you would hope would come to death at the the hands of those around him. The book was good in that it brought out emotion from me but It was aways anger and this upset me.

Sure why not? Pirates are a staple of adventure literature also. And a classic theme to boot!

kazan -

make sure to get your hands on Captain Blood - it will satisfy every vengeful bone in your body

Not to the bitter end. :) Do let me know how it comes out. As I recall from the film adaptation - never a reliable source - Scaramouche was a charmer, but certainly with a more picaresque, low-life background, as well. A bit unscrupulous?

I want to get the boundaries of this group straight in my mind. The intro to the group lists some late 19th and early 20th century adventure writers. I understand the late end of the time frame, I think, early to mid-forties, but what about the beginning.

There are a lot of adventure books aimed at the same age group as the ones listed above, but written decades earlier. James Fenimore Cooper wrote nearly a dozen boys adventures, including the Leatherstocking Tales, The Red Rover, and The Pilot. What about Treasure Island, or David Balfour, or Kidnapped, or Ivanhoe, or Kenilworth, do they belong here? Hermann Melville, always one to experiment with genres wrote an excellent picaresque, Israel Potter. What about the short and long adventure stories of Rudyard Kipling, or H. Rider Haggard? How about Mark Twain? The boy whose adventures rival those of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer is a rare lad indeed. Or to be maybe a little more up-to-date what of the adventures of Tom Swift? Of course some might put the genesis of the novel in the adventure category with Don Quixote and Tom Jones (the Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, not as the touchstone has it: Chris Roberts).

So how far into the past do you want to take this discussion? Remember these were all written, with the exception of the last two, as adventure stories, first. It is only later they became "classics".

Not clear on the relation to Rafael Sabatini, who was, after all, writing in the 1920s :) , but my own feeling would be: Kipling and H. Rider Haggard, of course. Many of the others, much as I love the picaresque, seem to me to be not only earlier, but a somewhat different kind of 'adventure', with R.L. Stevenson coming closest to the group's terrain. As I didn't start it, however, I am merely giving my own impression, here. :)

Kidnapped and Treasure Island are very much adventure stories as is The Master of Ballantrae and that was Stevenson's intent. Kenilworth and Ivanhoe were by Sir Walter Scott not Stevenson, but your point is taken #7. You could also include Robinson Crusoe or even Gulliver' Travels. If the pattern being followed here is the "boys own" story where character serves the action and nothing more is intended than the unfolding of exciting events, then CS Forester's Hornblower series or Arthur Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard are worthy of consideration.

Do not, I beg you, take my uncertainty over what the group was intended to cover as a slight to the other books: those I have read tend to be better. The question is only one of likeness, range, and intent. Not, in my own case, appreciation. Will look forward to hearing from IntegralENT. A longer discussion may call for its own thread - and would certainly be interesting enough to warrant one!

To add to this discusion. I hope that you will be willing to write about adventure books that you have currently read; whether they be old or newly published. That I and others might find out if they are worth the time to locate and read. And if commonly read that we can have a lively discusion about them. Personaly I am not well educated and a slow reader; reading only four or five books a month, so I like to look for a good hearty read. So lets have some fun and not set boundries that upset others. Good friends are like good books, you aways want more.

Oh, don't worry Eurydice. I'm very very liberal in the interpretation of what 'adventure' and 'classic' is.

I just listed examples in the group's description of those that I'm most familiar with.

Heck, writers like Phillip Jose Farmer, who wrote in the 60s onwards, or Gardner Fox, who wrote his novels in the 70s, IMO, fit, because they fit the theme.

Said theme just being fun, old fashioned, romping adventures. Just good old stories of adventure.