adventure stories, such as Anne Bowman (1801–1890). (Later writers such as Bessie
Marchant (1862–1941) actually showed girls enjoying adventures.) But the nineteenth-
century genre was dominated by male values.
One of the strongest features of the genre was its belief in the rightfulness of British
territorial possessions overseas, and the assumption that the British empire was an
unrivalled instrument for harmony and justice. Occasionally a writer, such as Marryat,
discussed the system, but most nineteenth-century writers of adventure stories accepted
the values of British imperialism quite uncritically. G.A. Henty was not afraid to criticise
aspects of British policy in his stories, but it is always within an unquestioning
acceptance of the legitimacy of British rule. Indeed, he often prefaced his tales with a
letter addressed to his readers—‘My Dear Lads’, he calls them—in which he drew
attention to the heroic feats in the story which followed, and which helped to create the
British empire. The imperialist statesman Winston Churchill (perhaps deliberately?),
echoed the title of one of Henty’s books A Roving Commission (1900) in the subtitle of his
early autobiography My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1930), and he was also a great
admirer of Rider Haggard’s stories.
In their use of formulaic plots and stereotypical characters adventure stories owed a
great deal to the structure of traditional folk- and fairy tales. Propp has shown how
Russian folk-tales contain many features also found in western European stories, such
as ‘Jack the Giant Killer’ and the English ‘Dick Whittington’, in which a young hero,
often with the help of a companion and a magical gift such as a ring, leaves home to
perform some great feat before returning triumphant to his family. In The Hero with a
Thousand Faces Joseph Campbell argues that such tales, with their mixture of realism
and the extraordinary, their narrative of the hero’s journey as quest, and their happy
ending, also have much in common with the myths of Greece and other ancient cultures;
and he suggests that they remain powerful because they express the unconscious fears
and desires which lie beneath the surface of much conscious behaviour. In The Uses of
Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim also vigorously defends the psychological value of folk-
and fairy tales, particularly for young people.
Despite their surface realism, many nineteenth-century adventure stories are based
upon the pattern of folk-tales, transformed by Victorian ideologies and reflecting
contemporary attitudes towards race and gender, but popular because they satisfied
some of the same human and psychological needs as traditional tales. The use of a
narrative structure which depends upon a familiar pattern also has other advantages:
the young readers may actually be encouraged in their reading of narrative as they
recognise familiar patterns of story telling, and also obtain aesthetic satisfaction in
learning to appreciate the ways different writers vary the expected formula or use it to
express a personal vision.
The finest writer within the tradition of the Victorian adventure story was Robert Louis
Stevenson (1850–1894), and the structure of the folk-tale is clearly visible behind many
of his books. In both Treasure Island (1883) and Kidnapped Stevenson portrays heroes
who are young boys when their fathers die. In Treasure Island Jim goes off on a voyage
in search of buried treasure, and in Kidnapped David leaves home in search of his
surviving relations. Both heroes take ships, visit remote islands, and return
triumphantly. The story pattern is a familiar one.
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