This book brings together for the first time nine groundbreaking historical novels by women from the United States, Canada and Latin America, united by their focus on female adventurers. These novels introduce the neglected women of history, real and imagined, who accompanied their menfolk to the New World, and enabled its settlement or colonisation. Familiar novelists include Isabel Allende, Audrey Thomas and Jane Smiley, but this book also introduces less familiar writers who have produced richly textured and densely historical novels. In addition to putting women back into history, these writers engage with the literature of the past, including the American canon of male fiction which dominated literary history before the intervention of feminist scholars. The book begins with an introduction to the history of historical fiction and provides a theoretical, historical and geographical context for the novels themselves.
"King's book is impressive in its gender analysis of these representations of valorous women. Adventurous Women expands both traditional ideas of adventure stories and the history of women's role in the exploration of the wilderness and the building of the nation. In addressing both historical events and literary fictions, it provides a route into examining indigenous matriarchal culture alongside Eurocentric patriarchal tradition, tracing a canon of women adventurers whose exploits shatter the more familiar myths of adventuring heroes." (Xiuchun Zhang, Contemporary Women's Writing, May 3, 2023)