Pitched against the unknown, against the forces of nature and against man's own treachery, the protaganists' 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, and from India to the Canadian wastes, 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. As well as being an exhilarating collection of classic tales by such masters as Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, John Buchan, and Zane Grey, and featuring the intrepid 'Biggles', The Oxford Book of Adventure Stories offers an historical survey of a literature that holds up a mirror to the modern age.

Edited by Joseph Bristow

Contents:

• MS Found in a Bottle by Edgar Allan Poe
• A Hazard of the North by Gilbert Parker
• The Private History of a Campaign That Failed by Mark Twain
• A Tale of Three Lions by H. Rider Haggard
• The Isle of Voices by Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Man-Eater of the Terai by G. A. Henty
• The Red Stockade by Bram Stoker
• The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes by Rudyard Kipling
• Aepyornis Island by H. G. Wells
• The Lagoonby Joseph Conrad
• All Gold Canyon by Jack London
• The Grove of Ashtaroth by John Buchan
• The Fiend of the Cooperage by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Follower by Frederick Carruthers Cornell
• Tigre by Zane Grey
• Hatteras by A. E. W. Mason
• Thunder Over Germany: A 'Biggles' Adventure by Captain W. E. Johns
• Truth Is Stranger by Percival Christopher Wren
• A Distant Episode by Paul Bowles
• The Chamois by Daphne Du Maurier
• Octopussy by Ian Fleming
• On the Rainy River by Tim O'Brien
• Death by Landscape by Margaret Atwood