ABSTRACT
Romances of the Middle Ages, such as the tales of Robin Hood and the story of Bevis of Hampton, seem to have been the earliest forms of adventure stories British children enjoyed. Richard Baxter, the famous seventeenth-century preacher, lamented his youth ‘bewitched with a love of romances, fables and old tales’ (Reliquiae Baxterianae, quoted in Ure 1956:10), and in 1709 Richard Steele described his 8-year-old godson's acquaintance with ‘Guy of Warwick’, whose brave deeds included killing a dragon and repelling Danish invaders.
