Imitating GA Henty

I read an interesting article the other day, in which

The Brothers Krynn

argued that we need more people imitating the works of ‘Conan the Barbarian’. Now, I personally, don’t think we need more books with half naked women on the cover, where the hero ‘gets a kiss’ from each of them at the end of the story and moves on. (I beg leave to believe that the ‘kiss’ was a euphemism).

However much of the article was speaking of how Christian authors ought to behave, and that is a subject near and dear to my heart (and several of my articles). He speaks of reviving ‘men’s fiction’ and I think he is absolutely right. However the type of men’s fiction that I would like to revive is ‘Boy’s Adventure’.

But Boys!

Now, I can hear the howling already, “We need men’s fiction, not boy’s fiction!!” To which I will reply… boy’s fiction is men’s fiction. At least in the case I cam going to present, the ‘boys’ involved start the story as what we might call ‘young men’, and then spend years traveling the world, fighting in battles, learning languages, and getting the girl. Man’s work.

I believe that the fiction that modern men need most is the fiction that teaches them that, at age ten or twelve… they are men. That while they may still bear they name ‘boy’, their responsibilities are becoming that of manhood. The ideas of protecting women and their homeland, of duty, of honour, of education for the sake of using it.

GA Henty

And in my opinion, and not just my opinion, GA Henty was the king of Boy’s Adventure fiction. For those of you who have never heard of him he lived from 1832–1902, and wrote from 1867 to, well, his last book was published in 1906. He wrote LOTS of things, but the thing he is most known for is his boy’s adventure stories, of which he wrote more than 75. And by ‘stories’ I mean ‘novels’.

Story Skeleton

Whenever I introduce anyone to GA Henty I tell them I can relate all of his stories to them in a minute: a boy is having some kind of problem at home, he meets some kind of important person, he goes off with the important person and has some historically significant adventures, works hard, learns the language, saves the girl, gets the girl. All done.

Obviously that leaves a hundred variations and a thousand details.

The Flesh on the Bones

So when I bring forward GA Henty as one of the men that modern Christian authors should be trying to imitate, what issues am I trying to raise?

1. That boy’s should dream of being warriors, and men should be. Obviously not all men should be actual warriors, although most of GA Henty’s heroes were. But they should all be trained to fight. And trained to fight spiritually as well as physically.

2. That boy’s should dream of leaving home, and Godly men should be working all over the world to advance the kingdom of Christ. GA Henty lived during the time of the British Empire, so ‘leaving home’ meant advancing the empire, fighting in its wars all over the world. Christ, too, has an empire, and we should be prepared to fight all over the world to advance it, as well.

3. That boy’s should dream of learning languages. And indeed, they should be taught languages from a young age. But this is also a metaphor, a metaphor for learning about other people and cultures. Again, in order to win them to Christ.

4. That boy’s should dream of getting the girl. Our society hates marriage, and hates children. Our boys should be looking forward to them. As a duty and a pleasure.

Free to Read

In case I have whet your appetite for reading GA Henty, or reading him aloud to your family, or listening to him when doing the dishes… you are in luck. Both Librivox and Gutenberg have lots of his books for free.

I appreciated

Blake Bobechko

‘s post the other day on the issue of boy’s adventure books.

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Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!

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Von also writes as ‘Arthur Yeomans’. Under that name he writes children’s, YA, and adult fiction from a Christian perspective. His books are published by Wise Path Books and include the children’s/YA books:

The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid

The Bobtails and the Cousins

The Bobtails go to France

and

No Ordinary School

As well as GK Chesterton’s wonderful book, “What’s Wrong with the World”, for which ‘Arthur’ wrote most of the annotations.

Arthur also has a substack, and a website. On the substack you can listen to some of his published books. Free.

Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,

Von