History Main / GentlemanAdventurer

* ''Literature/TheThirtyNineSteps'': Richard Hannay in some of John Buchan's novels. In others, he's a hard-working officer in the war and Intelligence doesn't have an easy time getting him away from active service. Which may be a subversion of this trope. Hannay's so annoyed about it.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* Othar Tryggvassen, '''Gentleman Adventurer!''' of ''Webcomic/GirlGenius''. On the flip side, he's also a WellIntentionedExtremist AntiVillain who intends to deal with the whole "[[ScienceRelatedMemeticDisorder sparks]] issue" in a rather [[GottaKillThemAll pointed and non-discriminatory fashion]]. For those not familiar with the series, that means ''himself included.'' [[NoPlaceForMeThere Himself last]].
** Othar's twitter reveals that he's more than willing to make an exception to "himself last" in situations involving cloning, time travel or alternate universes. He's out to get the most dangerous sparks first, after all, and he's the most dangerous spark he knows.
* Jade's grandfather from ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' appears to have been this. His [[spoiler:AlternateUniverse self]] can be considered this trope in training.

* A variant occurs in ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}'' with Antonio Smith, Forensic Linguist. While he tries to play it up as FilmNoir, he's simply not in the right fictional universe for that. He is, however, a literary professor who regularly sets out to fight the forces of evil (which, in this comic, means [[VillainProtagonist our protagonists.]])
* In ''Webcomic/{{Widdershins}}'', Henry Barber, famous member of the Royal Society of Hunters, is the [[http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-15th-2015/ fourth son of the Baron]]. He decided in his youth that his life would be better spent hunting magical artifacts and supernatural oddities than enduring high society.

* TruthInTelevision: UsefulNotes/TheodoreRoosevelt was a well-educated, well-dressed, well-mannered statesman who also just so happened to have spent much of his life as a {{cowboy}}, [[ColonelBadass an army colonel]], a police commissioner, a GreatWhiteHunter, and an all-around MemeticBadass who led the US army to an unlikely victory in the Spanish-American War, survived a bullet to the chest, and killed a cougar with a knife. His other hobbies included boxing, wrestling, polo, tennis, hiking, and football.
* UsefulNotes/CharlesDarwin, who JumpedAtTheCall. And promptly was seasick for the rest of the next few years. When he got back to England, he never left again, and busied himself with experiments in his garden and documenting the sex lives of barnacles, among other things.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Hillary Sir Edmund Hillary]].
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mallory George Mallory]], who probably summed up this trope with his reply to the question of why he wanted to summit Mount Everest:
-->"Because it's there."

* George Gordon, Lord Byron: Poet, Aristocrat, [[ByronicHero Infamous]] {{Jerkass}} womanizer, and by virtue of this trope... a national hero in a country that absolutely had nothing to do with his own. Living proof that not every gentleman can be an adventurer: Byron actually had none of the training necessary to be even mildly effective as a soldier or military commander, and his [[WarIsGlorious romanticized idea of heroic warfare]] was met with the [[WarIsHell far harsher realities]]: [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome he died of septicemia without ever taking the field.]] One could argue that his celebrity status led to AcquiredSituationalNarcissism, and he thought he would be great at warfare by virtue of being great at everything else, but things ended [[BreaktheHaughty differently than they did in his poems]].
* The Grand Tour was the 18th to early 19th Century equivalent of a gap year for the upper class, and it was more or less about a Gentleman (or woman) going Adventuring for some time before settling down.
* Sean Flynn, son of movie actor Creator/ErrolFlynn, took photos of UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar for Magazine/TimeMagazine, GoingForTheBigScoop. He disappeared (and was apparently killed) while traveling by motorcycle in Cambodia some time around 1970. Flynn wasn't in Vietnam because he needed the money, and, according to Michael Herr in "Dispatches," none of the press corp respected him until they actually saw the photos he was taking. He occasionally left Vietnam to star in motion pictures, then returned to get shot at some more.

* Before he got into politics, Barry Goldwater was one of the first people to boat recreationally through the Grand Canyon (he rowed himself all the way to Lake Mead) flew relief missions in over 165 different kinds of aircraft all over the world (including over Mt. Everest) in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar, gave free flights home for returning veterans of both wars, pressured the Pentagon to support desegregation and the creation of an Air Force Academy, and still flew B-52s as a two-star general in the Air Force Reserve while a sitting Senator.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Ranulph_Fiennes Sir Ranulph Fiennes]].

* Scrooge [=McDuck=] from ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'' and ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'' is literally the richest duck in the world, has an insatiable thirst for adventure, and even dresses like a Victorian Era gentleman even though the shows take place in the modern world. Interestingly, he often describes his past adventures from the typical "gentleman adventurer" period of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, implying that he's well over one hundred years old.

* George Gordon, Lord Byron: Poet, Aristocrat, [[ByronicHero Infamous]] {{Jerkass}} womanizer, and by virtue of this trope... a national hero in a country that absolutely had nothing to do with his own. Living proof that not every gentleman can be an adventurer: Byron actually had none of the training necessary to be even mildly effective as a soldier or military commander, and his [[WarIsGlorious romanticized idea of heroic warfare]] was met with the [[WarIsHell far harsher realities]]: [[RealityEnsues he died of septicemia without ever taking the field.]] One could argue that his celebrity status led to AcquiredSituationalNarcissism, and he thought he would be great at warfare by virtue of being great at everything else, but things ended [[BreaktheHaughty differently than they did in his poems]].

* ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' seems to suggest that "Doc" Brown is a subversion. He was rich enough to own a huge mansion in 1955, but by 1985 he's a recluse living in a garage (the mansion burned down, according to a newspaper article seen in the opening) and says he spent his entire family fortune to pay for his TimeTravel experiments. By the second film, he's acquired a briefcase full of cash from different eras. Considering his objection to Marty using future knowledge to bet on sports, how he acquired this money is unexplained.

* A variant occurs in ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}'' with Antonio Smith, Forensic Linguist. While he tries to play it up as {{Noir}}, he's simply not in the right fictional universe for that. He is, however, a literary professor who regularly sets out to fight the forces of evil (which, in this comic, means [[VillainProtagonist our protagonists.]])

* Farhan Al-Asmari in the ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' episode "Dead Man's Tale.'' Al-Asmari is a wealthy Saudi prince [[note]] his ''watch'' costs a million dollars [[/note]] who dives for treasure due to RichBoredom. Rather than splitting up and selling the artifacts he finds, Al-Asmari keeps them in his personal museum, while happily granting access to academics and researchers. When the previous possessor of the map to his latest discovery is found dead, Al-Asmari is honest and helpful to the investigating detectives.

* The late [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Bernhard_of_Lippe-Biesterfeld Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld]], Prince of the Netherlands, was part this and part LovableRogue. Though the "Gentleman" part is [[YourCheatingHeart disputed]].

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[[quoteright:306:[[VideoGame/HenryHatsworthInThePuzzlingAdventure https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/gentleman-adventurer2_5350.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:306:Now that's some prime DualWielding, good man.]]

* ''Series/OurMissBrooks'': Safari O'Toole, in the episode of the same name. He is Mrs. Davis' faithful pen pal, and is noted for his travels through the wilds of DarkestAfrica. [[spoiler: He's also a fake.]]
* The TV series of ''Series/TheSaint'' and ''Series/ThePersuaders'' (both starring Roger Moore).

* Sir Malcolm Murray from ''Series/PennyDreadful'' is a Victorian aristocrat and hardened explorer of ventures into Africa. Also a DeconstructedCharacterArchetype, since it's made evident that his "adventures" basically consisted of raping and slaughtering his way across Africa in the name of colonialism, wealth and glory.

* Higgins from ''Series/MagnumPI'', in his younger days. In fact, he seemed to fit an extraordinary amount of adventuring into a comparatively short time.... In point of fact his stories when compared to each other sometimes give the impression that he was on opposite sides of the world at the same time. Despite the slight implausibility of this, Higgins is very much a RetiredBadass.

* The BBC's gentleman-novelist-turned-detective Paul Temple was probably the last gasp of this character in the 1950's as a contemporary icon.
* ''Dick Barton, Special Agent'' would also qualify as an uppercrust gentleman adventurer.

* ''VideoGame/ProfessorLayton'': Hershel Layton spends his first game solving an inheritance issue (and lots and lots of puzzles) without any thought for reward or concern for expense. He certainly qualifies as a [[QuintessentialBritishGentleman gentleman]], although whether he's an adventurer depends on how dangerous you think matchstick puzzles are. [[spoiler:Extremely, as it turns out.]] Aside from puzzles, he is a skilled fencer, and regularly makes his own way out of dangerous situations, [[spoiler:such as using what's lying around to create a homemade glider and a ''machine gun''.]]
* Modern example in ''[[VideoGame/PennyArcadeAdventures On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness]]'': [[Webcomic/PennyArcade Tycho and Gabe]]. Although they certainly run a detective agency (Startling Developments!), they certainly don't seem to have too many clients. Indeed, the entire plot of episode one begins with them following a very large robot out of ''curiosity''.
* The main character of ''VideoGame/HenryHatsworthInThePuzzlingAdventure'', pictured above, is a QuintessentialBritishGentleman example.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'': Setzer Gabbiani, although in reality this is all a smokescreen to cover up the fact that [[spoiler:he is a nihilistic DeathSeeker who blames himself for the death of his fiancee, and would rather catch bullets instead of ladies' handkerchiefs until he meets the party.]]
* The recurring Gentleman trainer class from the ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' games. They have a tendency to use Pokémon based on loyal pets, such as Growlithe.
* The boxer Dudley has become this in the ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' series, as a contrast to the thuggish M.Bison (Japan)/Balrog (North America).
* Herbert Dashwood from ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}''.
* Invoked in ''VideoGame/{{Mount And Blade}}'', where the companion Rolf calls himself this in defence against accusations of being a common bandit. It's largely up to the player to determine whether or not his claims are legitimate.

* ''Franchise/TombRaider'': ''Lady'' Lara Croft, ''Countess of Abbingdon''

* North Vandernot, Major Gunn and Edmund Dashalot in ''VideoGame/BeTrapped''.

* Jade's grandfather from ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' appears to have been this. His [[spoiler:AlternateUniverse self]] can be considered this trope in training.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Widdershins}}'', Henry Barber, famous member of the Royal Society of Hunters, is the [[http://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/september-15th-2015/ fourth son of the Baron]]. He decided in his youth that his life would be better spent hunting magical artifacts and supernatural oddities than enduring high society.

* Thaddeus of Theatre/TheLeagueOfSTEAM is actually a ''Gentleman's'' Gentleman adventurer.

* Commander [=McBragg=] from ''WesternAnimation/TennesseeTuxedoAndHisTales''. [[ItMakesSenseInContext Or so he]] [[MeaningfulName claims...]]
* Comicbook/{{AQUAMAN}} on ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' easily falls under this. Although he takes his kingly duties seriously, AQUAMAN actively looks for various adventures, and spends all his time ''not'' adventuring by boisterously recounting his various exploits to whoever happens to be standing next to him -- complete with Hardy Boys-esque titles.

* ComicBook/GreenArrow started out this way. When he then lost his fortune, he suffered an identity crisis over whether he'd been superheroing out of a legitimate desire to do good, or just for fun. He thereafter became a much more passionate and socially-conscious do-gooder.
* Polly of ''ComicBook/PollyAndThePirates'' has a father who definitely falls under this category. He even makes his entrance in top hat and tails, being lowered on the ladder of a hot-air balloon.
* ComicBook/RichieRich's butler Cadbury loves to reminisce about his escapades with his former employer Sir Ruddy Blighter, "adventurist and time-waster extraordinaire."

* Film/JamesBond is in this tradition but in a darker direction -- there is a comment in either ''Film/CasinoRoyale2006'' or ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove'' that he is done playing "Cowboys and Indians", which [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this type of character's outlook. Of course, his determination to get out of the spy business never sticks.
* ''Film/BackToTheFuture'' seems to suggest that "Doc" Brown is a subversion. He was rich enough to own a huge mansion in 1955, but by 1985 he's a recluse living in a garage (the mansion burned down, according to a newspaper article seen in the opening) and says he spent his entire family fortune to pay for his TimeTravel experiments. By the second film, he's acquired a briefcase full of cash from different eras. Considering his objection to Marty using future knowledge to bet on sports, how he acquired this money is unexplained.
** Forgery, after purchasing originals from collector's fairs and auctions?

* ''Film/OBrotherWhereArtThou'': At one point, Emmet describes himself and Delmar as adventurers. They are not, however, gentlemen. Just gentle men.

* In ''Film/MyFavoriteYear'', the still-famous but washed up actor Alan Swann was known for either playing a dashing, suave adventurer when he wasn't a straight-up {{Swashbuckler}}.

* Julien Advent, Victorian Adventurer from the ''Literature/{{Nightside}}''. To the surprise of the main character, he's the real deal and genuine to boot, and one of the few people for whom HardboiledDetective John Taylor would cry ManlyTears.
* In ''Literature/JamesBond'' novels at least, the desire to quit playing Cowboys and Indians actually referred to his decision to quit having fun catching field agents and to start striking directly at SMERSH, the subsection of the KGB that enforced undying loyalty to the Soviet Union. This was right after the fear that SMERSH was after he drove [[spoiler:Vesper]] to suicide in ''Literature/CasinoRoyale''.
* Allan Quatermain [[LostInImitation in adaptations]], although in the original Creator/HRiderHaggard novels, his pals Sir Henry Curtis and Capn. John Good fit the trope much better than him.
* Rudolph Rassendyl in ''Literature/ThePrisonerOfZenda''

* The unnamed protagonist of ''Literature/RogueMale'' appears to be one of these. Apparently just for the fun of it, he tries to see if he could get into a position to assassinate a dictator (implied to be Hitler), but is captured and brutally tortured. His experiences afterward resemble a much darker version of Buchan's ''The Thirty-Nine Steps'', until it turns out that he is an UnreliableNarrator with motives very different from any thirst for adventure. [[spoiler: The dictator's regime murdered the hero's probably Jewish girlfriend, and he really ''was'' trying to kill him. The book ends with the hero preparing for another attempt.]]
* The GentlemanThief Raffles from the short stories by Ernest William Hornung affects the ''style'' of an adventurer, but really relies on crime to support himself financially.

* The Time Traveler in ''Literature/TheTimeMachine''.
* Mr. Toad from ''Literature/TheWindInTheWillows''. Or so he'd describe himself. The rest of the world regards him as a UpperClassTwit.
* While as noted, the RichIdiotWithNoDayJob is more of a modern variation, and that character tends to be motivated by a quest for justice more so than adventure, the ur-example of that trope, Literature/TheScarletPimpernel, fits this trope as well.
* Phileas Fogg from the Creator/JulesVerne classic ''Literature/AroundTheWorldInEightyDays''.
* Lord John Roxton in Conan Doyle's ''Literature/TheLostWorld1912''.
* ''Literature/ThePickwickPapers'' by Creator/CharlesDickens.
* ''Literature/TheSaint'': Simon Templar, although most of the money he has was [[PayEvilUntoEvil extracted from crooks he'd taken down]].

* Creator/AgathaChristie had a fair number of these in her novels. Sometimes, they would be the hero, such as Colonel Race who appears in several books, but sometimes subverted, as with Lombard, an amoral gun-for-hire in ''Literature/AndThenThereWereNone'' or whenever the traditional type turned out to be the murderer in the book.
* ''Literature/TheStainlessSteelRat'' once wrote a paper on this trope. He held that society moving past the stage where a man could be both a respected member of society (Gentleman) and totally apart from it (Adventurer) forced individuals to choose which they wanted to be, and stay with that choice for the rest of their lives. [=DiGriz=] himself chose to be outside of society, as a thief.
* Bilbo and later Frodo in ''Literature/TheHobbit'' and ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''.Bilbo's father married the wealthy Belladonna Took, whose money built the finest home in Hobbiton, Bag End. Neither wanted adventure at first, but after some prodding found they had a talent and a taste for it. Merry is also a Brandybuck, who are also an old respectable family, and Pippin is a cousin on the Took side (the Tooks technically being the closest hobbits have to a royal family, as the patriarch is the Thain--though nobody but the Tooks really take an interest in that) but are also heirs to large farm estates, unlike the Bagginses. Sam, by contrast, is an actual working-class laborer. We never find out much about Fatty Bolger's source of income.

* ''Literature/ArseneLupin'' is one of the earliest examples of this trope, appearing in the early 20th century. He's turned to robbery, rather than African wilds, using a mix of subterfuge and audacity that leaves the police unable to apprehend him. But his taste is just as considerable as his skill. He's such a discerning burglar that he once broke into someone's house only to leave a note letting the owner know that he would return once the reproductions were replaced with something worth stealing.
* ''Literature/BulldogDrummond'' is a classic inter-war version, an officer and a gentleman of independent means who gets into adventures for the excitement rather than for any personal gain. He is often seen as a bit of a thug and accidental deconstruction by later standards.
* ''Literature/DoctorSynTheScarecrow'' is an Oxford scholar who somehow turns out to be a peerless swordsman, horseman, navigator, and criminal gang leader.

* ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' doesn't travel as much as many of the other examples on this page, but he is implied to come from the gentry (as his family are said to be country squires), he is an expert at GoodOldFisticuffs, is often a SharpDressedMan, is impeccably courteous to women even despite his general dislike of them, is a GentlemanSnarker and a GentlemanAndAScholar, and one of the reasons he works as a consulting detective is to avoid RichBoredom, which to him is a FateWorseThanDeath.
** Although not so rich, at least at the start of his career. In ''Literature/AStudyInScarlet'', he takes in Watson as a housemate because he cannot afford the rent on 221B Baker Street on his own.
* ''Literature/RiversOfLondon'' has this as being part of Nightingale's backstory. Between the wars, he was out adventuring in the British Empire, India, and Far East, discovering all sorts of magical strife and acting as a one man troubleshooting squad. Then [=WW2=] and [[HeroicBSOD Ettersberg]] happened.
* ''Creator/ElizabethMoon'''s ''Literature/VattasWar'' series has Ransome's Rangers, a group of very wealthy men who are specifically looking to be Gentlemen Adventurers. They are extremely stylish, fancy in dress, full of bold and flowery statements, but also prove themselves brave in battle. The fact that they are rich enough to fund the weapons and materials that are needed to carry out the war doesn't hurt either...
* Literature/{{Biggles}} ended up as one of these in the inter-war period, albeit not entirely of his own free will; many of of his adventures from this period started out with him working a relatively mundane airfreight charter and minding his own business before being dragged into the MysteryOfTheWeek by circumstances out of his control. On at least one occasion he was hired by a more conventional example of the trope to fly his expedition out to some remote location, and then had to bail him out when everything went wrong.

-->'''Fort:''' We were adventurers!\\

->-->'''Fort:''' We were adventurers!\\

->'''Prisoner:''' But who in blazes is ''that?''\\
'''Othar:''' Why, ''I'' am '''OTHAR TRYGGVASSEN, ''Gentleman Adventurer!'''''\\
'''Second Prisoner:''' Uh oh.
-->-- ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'', "Othar!"

* Sir Malcolm Murray from ''Series/PennyDreadful'' is a Victorian aristocrat and hardened explorer of ventures into Africa. A DeconstructedCharacterArchetype since it's made evident that his "adventures" basically consisted of raping and slaughtering his way across Africa in the name of colonialism, wealth and glory.

* Film/GorillaInterrupted'': One of the four main characters is an effete British hunter who wears khaki.