by Rosemary Jones

The explosion of the “romantasy” tag on TikTok, book websites, and bookstores’ shelf-talkers sparked news stories on CNN and PBS News Hour in 2024. While the label is new, the idea of mixing romance and fantasy took off in the early 20th century.

What Is Romantasy?

Reviewers define romantasy as a fantasy where the plot falls apart if you remove the romance. This eliminates a classic like the Lord of Rings immediately. Despite a little extra sparkle in the movies, the love story of Aragorn and Arwen can be deleted as easily as trimming out Tom Bombadil. The fans might not like it, but the plot works without either one.

In a Bookstr article on the genre’s beginnings, Danielle Tomilson also argues that dressing up a standard romance with some elves doesn’t make it a romantasy. She defines true romantasy as a story where the fantasy worldbuilding is as central to the plot as the love story.

The Recent History of Romantasy

Beauty by Robin McKinley, Pocket Books, July 1979, cover artist uncredited.

Based on this criteria, Tomilson starts the genre’s history with Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks (1987). Pamela Patrick’s artwork for the Ace first edition of War for the Oaks looked more romantic than later printings, which played up the urban gritty part of the plot. So the novel fits the idea of trying to lure romance readers and fantasy readers with an appropriate cover. But does War for the Oaks really mark the first appearance of the romantasy genre? 

Robin McKinley’s first novel, Beauty (1978), also fits Tomilson’s definition. A fantasy with an indispensable love story at its core, the novel contains all the vibes of today’s cozy romantasy, with likable side characters, a horse pal, and a hero who owns a gorgeous library. Beauty is often cited as the inspiration for other authors’ fairytale retellings, a popular trope in romantasy.

For the Beauty paperback cover (1979), Pocket Books’ uncredited wraparound artwork featured a young woman running away from a castle in much the style of paperback gothic romances where ladies fled mansions with a single lighted window.

So did the 1970s publishers guess there was a market for romantasy even if there wasn’t a word for it? The paperback publishers of the decade certainly put out covers that we would now identify as romantasy in style.

Andre Norton’s Witch World series started out as science fiction where “the magic is real!” (as blurbed on her early books) and often had a romantic subplot. The Year of the Unicorn (1965) reads like today’s romantasy, with exiled shapeshifters claiming brides as payment for their support in battles. While the original paperback featured the Jack Gaughan science fiction art used for the series, Ace reissued The Year of the Unicorn (1974) with a gorgeous fairytale illustration by J. H. Breslow of the bride and her knight riding through a flowery field.

(Left) Witch World by Andre Norton, Ace Books 1963, cover art and title page illustration by Jack Gaughan. (Right) Year of the Unicorn by Andre Norton, Ace Books 1974, cover artwork by J.H. Breslow (artist uncredited in the book but identified at Andre-Norton.com).

Ballantine’s reissue of Restoree (1967) by Anne McCaffrey also played up the romance. McCaffrey’s first novel is filled with space battles, but some would count Restoree as romantasy because the romance is as central to the plot as the alien world. Ballantine’s 1977 paperback cover by the Brothers Hildebrant shows the heroine being swept off her feet (literally) by the alien soldier hero.

Restoree by Anne McCaffrey. (Left) Ballentine, September 1967, cover artist uncredited. (Right) Del Rey/Ballentine, March 1977, cover art by the Brothers Hildebrandt.

So these reprints got lush cover art treatment as far back as the 1970s, even if they lacked the fancy sprayed edges of today’s romantasy novels. But was anything older marketed as much as romance as fantasy?

The Origins of Romantasy

Let’s skip a few decades and look at the 1912 pulp debut of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In his first adventure, John Carter is transported to a marvelous world full of four-armed green monsters. There he meets an “incomparable” and mostly naked beauty named Dejah Thoris. Burroughs not only wrote a swashbuckling adventure in The Princess of Mars, but also kept readers coming back for more love stories with lightly clad Martians!

Like Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, Burroughs gave his central couple several romantic setbacks to overcome over multiple books. Carter may marry his Dejah Thoris at the end of Princess, but he is then whisked back to Earth. After two more books of adventures, they settle happily in their palace and enjoy the romantic adventures of their offspring and friends.

Long before the Bridgertons, Burroughs perfected the formula of writing a new romance for each member of an extended family. After bringing together John Carter and Dejah Thoris, Burroughs focused on the couple’s children and friends.

Burroughs also used the same formula with his most famous couple, Tarzan and Jane, who take two books to reach their “fated mates” wedding. Then he wrote a romance for their child in Son of Tarzan. At the outset, publishers sold the love story as hard as the adventure: The famous first appearance of Tarzan of the Apes (1912) in All-Story magazine is subtitled “A Romance of the Jungle” on the cover. But his publishers never gave the Tarzan books the romantic covers of the Mars series.

The first hardcover edition of Princess of Mars (1917) featured both John and Dejah in the dust jacket art by Frank E. Schoonover. Schoonover gave readers a much more clothed John Carter and Dejah Thoris than the 1970s dust jacket featuring art by Frank Frazetta. But no matter which Frank you like best, both covers made the couple as obvious as the swashbuckling.

(Left) Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc, circa 1940s, P. J. Monahan artwork from 1920s first edition published by McClurg (same artwork also used as cover of All-Story Weekly for story’s first appearance). (Right) Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Science Fiction Book Club Edition, 1970, dust jacket and interior artwork by Frank Frazetta.

In Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916), their son Carthoris finds his own princess. Never mind the four-armed green giant in the background; the foreground of the pulp magazine cover and subsequent-book dust jacket features Thuvia running through a bank of red flowers. P. J. Monahan’s lovely artwork definitely makes this look like a romantic adventure.

Romantasy might be a 21st-century word. But if we define romantasy as a genre where worldbuilding is as important as the couple’s happy ending, and where the publisher makes the book look as lovely as possible at least some of the time, then this style easily dates back to the beginning of the last century. If you are a fan, you’ll find many interesting novels out there and some gorgeous cover art to add to your romantasy bookshelf!

Rosemary Jones is a reader but also a book collector who finds the current romantasy publications with sprayed edges and illustrated endpapers a lovely return to the illustrated fiction of an earlier age. You can follow her book collecting adventures at lost_loves_books on Instagram and find information about her own writing at rosemaryjones.com.