There was a time when the world was closed to most people. It was a time before mass travel and the Internet, where continents still had mystery and people didn't even really know what was in their own backyard.

This was the time of adventure novels. Children and adults alike marveled in the stories of masked adventurers who saved the damsel in the distress. Gunfighters who only killed to defend themselves and the hard, but beautiful women that loved them.

People would sit in their homes with their boring little lives and dream of what it would be like to be those masked men. When movies came about, people no longer had to imagine what it would be like. They could watch and see them on the silver screen. Soon, television brought it into your home.

The world stopped being mysterious because cameras began to show every inch of it. The Old West became civilized and adventure became a staple of modern entertainment. Sadly, it meant the swansong for many literary heroes.

Don't get me wrong, there are still adventure books out there in the mainstream, but their numbers have dwindled significantly since their heyday. World War II was the last hurrah of the adventure novel and despite many other wars and conflicts, it has never been able to recover. I can only imagine what it would have been like to sit in my room reading about the exploits of Jesse James and Pat Garret as the first motor cars made their debut.