The Unpredictable Adventure: A Comedy of Woman’s Independence

Originally published in 1935, The Unpredictable Adventure is considered to be one of the most significant of the utopias published by women in the United States during the 1930s. Serious fun, it is a rollicking, passionate exploration of female sexuality that questions male authority and anticipates many contemporary feminist concerns.

The heroine of the novel, Tellectina, leaves her hometown, Smug Harbor--in the Land of Err where only Halfish is spoken--to travel in the ＂Forbidden Country＂ of Nithking, where Reasonese is spoken. Under the tutelage of Aunt Sophistica, Tellectina searches for Mount Certitude and predictability. Unique in her treatment of gendered sex roles, Owens invents a mythology of sexual initiation rites, examines the problems in marriage, religion, divorce, and earning a living, while vividly portraying the universal struggle of women to achieve a balanced life.

Claire Myers Spotswood Owens (1896-1983) was born in Texas and attended Texas Woman’s University. After numerous personal adventures, she settled in New York City where she worked in bookshops and wrote reviews. At the age of seventy she became attracted to Zen and moved to a colony in Rochester, New York, where she died at the age of eighty-seven.

Miriam Kalman Harris is a writer and researcher and the author of Call It Courage: Women Transcending Violence.