On the Borders of the Adventure Novel: Narratives of 18th-Century Travel in Indian Territory

I will attempt here to discuss and illustrate an instance, in the literature of travel, of the fluid, and overlapping relations that often exist between genres, and more particularly between fictional and non-fictional genres. The particular body of travel literature that I will be dealing with involves accounts of Anglo-American travel in territories still controlled (at least partially) by Indians in the 18th century. I will suggest that some of this material would qualify as a kind of “adv...