NovelCult

Adventure and Historical Web Novels

Adventure web novels with public chapters on NovelCult.

The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers is the first of three adventure novels written by Alexandre Dumas featuring the character of d’Artagnan. The young d’Artagnan leaves home in Gascony for Paris to join the King’s Musketeers. On his way to Paris, the letter which will introduce him to the commander of the Musketeers is stolen by a mysterious man in the town of Meung.

Alexandre Dumas · Adventure · 69 ch

The Last of the Mohicans

The Last of the Mohicans is one of the most famous tales of pioneer American adventure. Set during the French and Indian War, Mohicans tells the tale of the journey of two daughters to meet their father, a colonel, at Fort William Henry. The road is long and dangerous, and they, along with their American and Native guides, encounter adventure at each step.

James Fenimore Cooper · Adventure · 34 ch

Ivanhoe

Set in 12th-century England, Prince John rules while his brother King Richard is away during the Crusades. During his reign, Prince John and others of Norman nobility abuse their power over the Saxons, forcing Saxons off their lands and many Saxon nobles into serfdom. Ivanhoe, a man disowned by his own Saxon father for going to war alongside the Norman King Richard, returns from the Crusades in disguise and appears in a tournament at Ashby.

Walter Scott · Historical · 46 ch

The Scarlet Pimpernel

At the height of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, a mysterious daredevil rescues French aristocrats from execution and smuggles them out of France. This secretive escape artist is known to the French authorities only by the drawings of a flower, the scarlet pimpernel, that he leaves as his calling card. Marguerite St. Just has avoided the worst of the revolutionary turmoil.

Baroness Orczy · Adventure · 31 ch

Kidnapped

Written in 1886, Kidnapped is an adventure novel set in Scotland in the mid-1700s, not long after the Jacobite rebellion in the Highlands which had attempted to set Bonnie Prince Charlie on the throne. This rebellion was put down brutally and afterwards the Government imposed strict controls on Highlanders, outlawing many clan leaders. The protagonist of Stevenson’s novel is young David Balfour, who is in his late teens.

Robert Louis Stevenson · Adventure · 33 ch

The Prince and the Pauper

The Prince and the Pauper remains one of Twain’s more popular novels, having been adapted many times for the stage, screen, and elsewhere. When Tom Canty, a young pauper in London, meets Prince Edward, the two switch clothes and assume the other’s identity. Tom then learns the life of royalty, while the true prince discovers the troubles of commoners.

Mark Twain · Historical · 36 ch

Captain Blood

Peter Blood, with experience as a soldier and sailor, is practicing medicine in Bridgewater, England, when he inadvertently gets caught up in a rebellion being waged by the Duke of Monmouth. After being convicted of treason, Blood and some of the rebels are sentenced to slavery in the Caribbean. The year is 1688.

Rafael Sabatini · Adventure · 31 ch

Waverley

Edward Waverley is a young English gentleman, the heir to his uncle, Sir Everard Waverley. After receiving a commission in the English army and being stationed in Scotland, he comes into contact with Jacobites, supporters of the pretender Charles Stuart, who seeks to reclaim the throne of England. After becoming enamored with the Jacobite cause and subsequently being suspected of treason, Waverley decides to openly join the uprising on the side of the rebels, during which his honorable conduct wins him favor on both sides of the conflict.

Walter Scott · Adventure · 77 ch

The Black Arrow

Richard “Dick” Shelton fights in the service of Sir Daniel, an unprincipled knight who continually changes sides in the War of the Roses. Dick helps a young lady, dressed as a man, who is escaping Sir Daniel’s attempt to marry her off. In the meantime, Dick suspects that the man he serves had a hand in killing his father, and must figure out who his real friends are.

Robert Louis Stevenson · Adventure · 33 ch

The Outlaw of Torn

In 13th century England, Norman of Torn is trained by his father, a French swordmaster with a grudge, in the art of swordsmanship—and to hate the English. He also befriends the priest Father Claude, who teaches him to respect the poor and the weak. As he comes of age, he becomes known as the “Devil of Torn,” the powerful leader of a band of outlaws that terrorizes the aristocracy and protects the poor.

Edgar Rice Burroughs · Adventure · 19 ch

Lorna Doone

John Ridd, a young yeoman farmer, chances upon a beautiful girl in an injudicious visit to a secret valley. It’s a brief but life-defining moment, for John falls in love at first sight. Yet there are complications.

R. D. Blackmore · Adventure · 76 ch

The Master of Ballantrae

Robert Louis Stevenson’s fascination with the mid-18th Century Jacobite rebellion in Scotland led to the production of his classic Kidnapped, along with its later sequel, Catriona. The Master of Ballantrae —written only a couple years after Kidnapped —shares the same evocative historical setting. The story revolves around the fractious relationship of the two sons of the Lord of Durrisdeer: the elder and duplicitous James, and Henry, the stolid younger brother.

Robert Louis Stevenson · Adventure · 15 ch

Catriona

Robert Lewis Stevenson continues the story of David Balfour, starting directly where Kidnapped left off. Compared to Kidnapped, Catriona is much more of a comedy of manners, politics, and romance than a simple action-adventure story, but it still has several of Stevenson’s trademark escapades, imprisonments, and daring escapes. The title character David Balfour attempts to navigate, to his own peril, his apparent role in the Appin murder, the subsequent trial of James of the Glens, life among high society, and the machinations of James Macgregor Drummond, the father of David’s great love, Catriona.

Robert Louis Stevenson · Adventure · 33 ch

The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel

At the scene of Marat’s death, in an infamous cabaret in the old section of Paris, in an old abandoned château on the outskirts of the city, in a prison in the midst of the September massacres—the Scarlet Pimpernel and his League may be in all of these places, or they may be in none of them. In these eleven stories Chauvelin, Robespierre, and several other officials each make their attempts to catch the Pimpernel as he intervenes on the side of the innocent and helpless. The question in these stories is not really whether they will snare him, but how he will make his escape—and in some cases, whether he’s there at all.

Baroness Orczy · Adventure · 51 ch

Bellarion the Fortunate

Bellarion, a young orphan, leaves the abbey he was raised in to attend university and learn Greek. He quickly learns the dangers of life in fifteenth-century Italy, as he is robbed, caught in a riot, and chased through town by the authorities. He tangles himself in a plot against the local regent, plays one side against the other, and declares his service to the beautiful but uninterested Valeria.

Rafael Sabatini · Adventure · 47 ch

The Sea Hawk

Sir Oliver Tressilian, a retired seafarer, lives in Cornwall with his half-brother Lionel. After Lionel kills the brother of Oliver’s beloved Rosamund, Oliver protects him by letting it be assumed that he himself did the deed. Lionel, becoming paranoid that Oliver will one day expose him, has Oliver kidnapped and sold into slavery.

Rafael Sabatini · Adventure · 35 ch

The Elusive Pimpernel

In the third published installment of her Scarlet Pimpernel stories, Baroness Orczy brings back Chauvelin, the French official unable to catch the Pimpernel in the first novel. This time he is more determined, more ruthless, and more devious. He plans to capture both the Pimpernel and his wife, threatening an entire town in the process.

Baroness Orczy · Adventure · 35 ch

I Will Repay

The young Vicomte de Marny rashly challenges a French official to a duel, and dies as a result. The Vicomte’s father, the ancient Duc de Marny, insists that his daughter, Juliette, swear an oath before God to seek revenge on the man who killed her brother. Years later, as the French Revolution rages, Juliette insinuates herself into the official’s household, and quickly discovers a way to anonymously accuse him before the National Convention.

Baroness Orczy · Adventure · 32 ch

The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel

At one of Robespierre’s “Fraternal Suppers,” a young man denounces Robespierre but is saved by an asthmatic vagabond. The young man flees to the home of his friend Theresia Cabarrus, who is engaged to one of the most important men in the government, and who is also desired by Robespierre himself. When the young man disappears from her home, allegedly at the hands of the Scarlet Pimpernel, the ever-present Chauvelin enlists her help in trying to capture the elusive Pimpernel.

Baroness Orczy · Adventure · 89 ch

El Dorado

In the Scarlet Pimpernel’s fourth outing, he and his league want to free the orphaned Dauphin of France from his captors. But someone else has the same idea, although for very different, and selfish, reasons. In addition to trying to outflank his rival, the Pimpernel also has to deal with a member of his inner circle whose romance has caused him to disobey orders and put the entire plan in jeopardy.

Baroness Orczy · Adventure · 50 ch