In Martin Green's view, the majority of novelists in the so-called Great Tradition of the English novel neglected whole areas of the national experience, and most especially Britain's imperial career. In this talk, Dr Green, author of Children of the Sun and A Mirror for Anglo-Saxons, examines the cultural implications of this withdrawal and argues that greater attention should be paid to those authors, particularly Defoe, Scott and Kipling, whose adventure novels confronted the challenge of the Empire.