This book is an exploration of popular late nineteenth-century texts that show Australia - along with Africa, India and the Pacific Islands - to be a preferred site of imperial adventure. Focusing on the period from the advent of the new imperialism in the 1870s to the outbreak of World War I, Robert Dixon looks at a selection of British and Australian writers. Their books, he argues, offer insights into the construction of empire, masculinity, race, and Australian nationhood and identity. Writing the Colonial Adventure shows that the genre of adventure/romance was highly popular throughout this period. The book examines the variety of themes within their narrative form that captured many aspects of imperial ideology. In considering the broader ramifications of these works, Professor Dixon develops an original approach to popular fiction, both for its own sake and as a mode of cultural history.

This book explores imperial ideology through the narrative themes of popular texts.

1893. Dr Watson, still in mourning for the death of his great friend Sherlock Holmes, is now triply bereaved, with his wife Mary's death in childbirth. Then a telegram from Melbourne, Australia intrudes into his grief. "Come at once if convenient." Both suspicious and desperate to believe that Holmes may not, after all, be dead, Watson goes as immediately as the sea voyage will allow. Soon Holmes and Watson are together again, on an adventure through Bohemian Melbourne and rural Victoria, following a series of murders linked by a repulsive red leech and one of Moriarty's lieutenants. But things are not as they were. Too many words lie unsaid between the Great Detective and his biographer. Too much that they feel is a secret. Solve the crime, forgive a friend, rediscover trust and admit to love. Surely that is not beyond that legendary duo, Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson?

Europeans came to the American colonies in the 1600s and 1700s in search of a better life. They worked hard and built farms, homes, and towns. But they were still under Great Britain's rule. Many wanted to make their own laws, but that meant going to war against a rich and powerful country. Will you: Travel to Virginia as an indentured servant? Choose between careers as a sailor or a soldier in Massachusetts? Decide which side you'll take as the country marches closer to revolution?

Looks at implications of colonialism for both English and Americans.

Introducing the neglected tradition of Scottish women's writing to readers who may already be familiar with English Victorian realism or the historical romances of Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, this book corrects male-dominated histories of the Scottish novel by demonstrating how women appropriated the masculine genre of romance.