![]() Baroness Emma Orczy’s historical (18th c.) espionage adventure The Scarlet Pimpernel is set during France’s post-Revolution Terror. Its protagonists are archetypes of the amateur adventure hero, the likes of whom would later appear so memorably in the novels of John Buchan. But it’s a thrilling yarn nevertheless, one which sought to alert British readers to the danger of German invasion. Robert Erskine Childers’s espionage adventure The Riddle of the Sands can be a demanding read for those with no interest in sailing or timetables. In the process, he races across India Kipling - an imperialist, but a keen observer of India all the same - brilliantly captures the essence of that country under the British Raj. Rudyard Kipling’s espionage adventure Kim, in which an Irish orphan in India not only becomes the disciple of a Tibetan lama, but is recruited by the British secret service to spy on Russian agents participating in the Great Game. It’s the complete espionage adventure package. Jules Verne’s espionage adventure Mathias Sandorf features: islands, cryptograms, surprise revelations of identity, technically advanced hardware, a solitary figure bent on revenge, a pursuer who is himself pursued, and more. When the Tartar Khan incites a rebellion and separates the Russian Far East from the mainland, Michael Strogoff, courier for Tsar Alexander II, is sent to Irkutsk on a crucial mission. Jules Verne’s espionage adventure Michael Strogoff, considered one of Verne’s best books. It is their sanguine companion D’Artagnan who coins the classic phrase “All for one, and one for all!” swashbuckling adventure The Three Musketeers introduces us to three unforgettable characters: the distinguished, highly educated Musketeer Athos the religious and scholarly yet womanizing younger Musketeer Aramis and the Falstaffian Musketeer Porthos. So that’s why the phrase is used to describe 9 or 10 of the 61 novels on this list. PS: HILOBROW reader “Don Theman” asks, rather grumpily, why several of the titles on this list are described using the phrase “sardonic inversion of the genre.” Here’s why: Although in the grand scheme of things, only a tiny fraction of spy novels are sardonic inversions of the genre, I’m particularly fond of this sort of thing. In chronological order, here is the list of my Top Sixty Espionage Adventures. Also, I have friends who’ve published adventures since 1983 - I don’t want these lists to be biased! Why does my Top Adventures List project stop in 1983? Primarily because I figure that adventure fans already know which adventure novels from the Eighties, Nineties, and Twenty-Oughts are worth reading I’m interested in directing attention to older, sometimes obscure or forgotten adventures. JOSH GLENN’S *BEST ADVENTURES* LISTS: BEST 250 ADVENTURES OF THE 20TH CENTURY | 100 BEST OUGHTS ADVENTURES | 100 BEST RADIUM AGE (PROTO-)SCI-FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST TEENS ADVENTURES | 100 BEST TWENTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST THIRTIES ADVENTURES | 75 BEST GOLDEN AGE SCI-FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST FORTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST FIFTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST SIXTIES ADVENTURES | 75 BEST NEW WAVE SCI FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST SEVENTIES ADVENTURES | 100 BEST EIGHTIES ADVENTURES | 75 BEST DIAMOND AGE SCI-FI ADVENTURES | 100 BEST NINETIES ADVENTURES (in progress) | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | NOTES ON 21st-CENTURY ADVENTURES. The titles marked with an asterisk (*) are from my Top 200 Adventures list the others are second-tier favorites. Thus - below, please find a list of sixty-one of my favorite espionage adventures - arranged not qualitatively (which would be impossible) but chronologically. Twenty of the titles on those secondary lists are espionage. Also, via the following posts - Best 19th Century Adventure (1805–1903) | Best Nineteen-Oughts Adventure (1904–1913) | Best Nineteen-Teens Adventure (1914–1923) | Best Twenties Adventure (1924–1933) | Best Thirties Adventure (1934–1943) | Best Forties Adventure (1944–1953) | Best Fifties Adventure (1954–1963) | Best Sixties Adventure (1964–1973) | Best Seventies Adventure (1974–1983) - I listed another two hundred and fifty of my favorite adventures. Forty-one of the titles on that list are espionage adventures. Recently, I compiled a list of two hundred of my favorite adventures published before the Eighties (1984–1993).
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