10 Most Influential Adventure Books of All Time
Collider has published a ranked list of the ten most influential adventure books of all time, tracing how classic novels shaped the conventions of the genre and influenced countless later books, films and games. The list highlights works that introduced memorable protagonists, established new subgenres such as survival fiction, or explored the era's fascination with exploration and the unknown.
Ranked from ten down, the entries include Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (1719), credited with founding the survival-adventure subgenre; Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days" (1872), which captures the excitement of a newly interconnected world of steamships and railways; and Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World" (1912), which predates modern dinosaur fiction by imagining a hidden prehistoric plateau.
– Ranking of the ten most influential adventure novels ever written
– No. 10: "Robinson Crusoe" (1719) pioneered the survival-adventure subgenre
– No. 9: "Around the World in Eighty Days" (1872) defined the globe-trotting adventure
– No. 8: "The Lost World" (1912) predated dinosaur-fiction trends by a century