Classic Adventure Stories

The biggest problem of doing this list was figuring out what to include and what to exclude.  If you broaden the category to "Action/Adventure" you could potentially include pretty much half the English language canon!  So I have limited myself to "adventure" and to the following criteria: (1) must be a classic, or at least widely known; (2) must include a journey; and (3) must include physical danger.  And if it also includes pirates, knights, cowboys, savages, really big monkeys, and/or deserted islands, so much the better!  (Note that I've also organized them by author rather than title, because so many authors have written numerous notable adventure novels.)

1. Anonymous - The Epic of Gilgamesh
2. Anonymous - The Song of Roland
3. Anonymous - Beowulf
4. Anonymous - Tales of Prester John
5. Anonymous - The Arabian Knights
6. Barrie, JM - Peter Pan
7. Baum, Frank - The Wizard of Oz
8. Buchan, John - The 39 Steps
9. Burroughs, Edgar Rice - Tarzan of the Apes, John Carter of Mars
10. Carroll, Lewis - Alice in Wonderland
11. Cervantes - Don Quixote
12. Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim
13. Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans, The Deerslayer
14. Cornwell, Bernard - Sharpe series, The Grail Quest series, the Saxon series
15. Crichton, Michael - Jurrasic Park, The Great Train Robbery, Congo
16. Cussler, Clive - Sahara, Raise the Titanic, Inca Gold
17. Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, The King of Pirates
18. Doyle, Arthur Conan - Lost World
19. Dumas, Alexandre - Three Muskateers, Man in th Iron Mask, The Count of Monte Cristo
20. Forester, CS - Horatio Hornblower series
21. Fraser, George MacDonald - Flashman series
22. George, Jean Craighead - My Side of the Mountain
23. Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
24. Haggard, H. Rider - King Solomon's Mines, She, Allen Quartermain
25. Hilton, James - Lost Horizon
26. Homer - Iliad, Odyssey
27. Hope, Anthony - The Prisoner of Zenda
28. Howard, Robert - Conan the Barbarian
29. Kipling, Rudyard - The Man Who Would Be King, The Jungle Book, Captains Courageous, Kim
30. L'Amour, Louis - Shane, How the West Was Won, Sackett
31. London, Jack - The Call of the Wild, Sea Wolf, White Fang
32. Ludlum, Robert - The Bourne Identity
33. Malory, Sir Thomas - Le Morte d'Arthur
34. McCully, Johnston - The Mark of Zorro (aka The Curse of Capistrano)
35. McMurtry, Larry - Lonesome Dove
36. Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
37. Paulsen, Gary - Hatchet, Grizzly
38. Reid, Thomas Mayne - The White Gauntlet, the Bush Boys
39. Sabatini, Rafael - Captain Blood
40. Salgari, Emilio - Pirates of Malaysia series, Black Corsair series, Pirates of Bermuda series
41. Scott, Sir Walter - Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, The Pirate
42. Stevenson, Robert Lewis - Treasure Island, Kidnapped
43. Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's Travels
44. Tolkein, JRR - The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings
45. Twain, Mark - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Adventures of Tom Sawyer
46. Vergil - The Aeneid
47. Verne, Jules - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Mysterious Island, Around the World in 80 Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth
48. Wallace, Edgar - The African stories
49. Wells, HG - The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau
50. Wren, PC - Beau Geste
51. Wyss, Johann David - Swiss Family Robinson