The Oxford Book of Adventure Stories
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:23rd Feb '95
Currently unavailable, currently targeted to be due back around 1st February 2025, but could change
`The love of adventure, and of mystery, and of a good fight lingers in the minds of men and women.' Thus wrote Andrew Lang in 1887, and the enduring popularity of a genre that was in its heyday at the turn of the century shows no sign of waning. This anthology brings together 23 of the best adventure stories from the zenith of Empire to our present, fragmented, post-colonial world. Pitched against the unknown, against the forces of nature and against man's own treachery, the protagonists' courage and heroism are put to the test. In settings that range from desert islands to the Java Sea, from war-torn Europe to deepest Africa, heroes battle not only for self-preservation but in defence of country and culture. As the old certainties faded with the loss of empire, so moral complexity and literary sophistication grew, and the very notion of `adventure' is challenged in fine stories by Paul Bowles, Tim O'Brien, and Margaret Atwood.
entertaining anthology. * Richard Foster, Yorkshire Evening Post *
It is like a glass of heady wine in transporting the reader back to the days when, with an adventure story to read, no television, they settled in front of a good fire for an enjoyable evening. The selection is wide, pleasing, covering a range of capabilities, and will make one yearn for writers to turn to the adventure story again. * Bill Spence, Yorkshire Gazette & Herald *
this is a scholarly work marking the changes in the genre from Poe, Parker and Kipling of the 19th and early 20th centuries to Ian Fleming, Tim O'Brien and Margaret Atwood today. * Roy Williams, The Southern Daily Echo *
"The love of adventure, and of mystery, and of a good fight lingers in the minds of men and women" wrote a 19th century scribe - and the enduring quality of the adventure story. Here are collected 23 of the best you could read. * Peter Hannam, Eastern Daily Press *
entertaining and challenging selection. * Tim Woodward, Yorkshire Post *
ISBN: 9780192142146
Dimensions: 224mm x 121mm x 30mm
Weight: 675g
436 pages