What Is The Exile Outlander Timeline For The Book Series?

The novel builds to a really simple point, about a series of exiles that form the spine of her novel. Claire’s first exile from her life in the 1940s to 1743 is followed by her second, and toughest, exile from Jamie in the years following Culloden when she is forced back to the 20th century to bring up their daughter alone. In ‘Voyager’ Claire deliberately travels back to 18th century Scotland in search of Jamie, only to find herself as isolated and in danger as ever before, as an outsider woman in a man’s world, with the troubles of a Jacobite warrior as his burden to bear.

And then, exile turns into migration. Claire, Jamie, and their daughter go to North Carolina, where they try to build a life in a foreign land as outsiders. The pressures are high, but not as high as the pain of the many separations caused by war, imprisonment, or simple lack of means of transport. And this is the pattern of the series: lost, separated, found, forced apart. This is what keeps bringing me back to Outlander.

My inner history geek appreciates that the exiles of Outlander are not simply one event in time, but can occur against the backdrop of any historical time period that interests Gabaldon. Thus we have Claire’s sudden transport to 1743, followed by the fall of the Jacobites and the physical, emotional, and psychological exiles of the principal characters as they are imprisoned or lose their homes and social status. And then some decades later, there is the expanse of the migration of Americans to settle in the New World and the subsequent re-establishing of home by Jamie and Claire in theAmericas in Voyager and Drums of Autumn.

Chronologically, this forms a linear narrative: the first book introduces Claire to 18th century Scotland where she must navigate and ultimately flee after Culloden; the second is the lead up to and the years immediately following Culloden, retrospectively told in Dragonfly in Amber. The long years of Jamie and Claire’s return to the future and attempts to rebuild their lives across two continents forms the bulk of Voyager and Drums of Autumn. The remaining books in the series form a continually expanding sweep of historical narrative, centering on the Revolutionary War in The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bone, and finally Written in My Own Heart’s Blood. Importantly, in each of these novels, someone is exiled: from their family, from their country, from their time in space. And it is not just a physical event; it is an emotional geography that is explored deeply. I am left with a deeper understanding of the many faces of exile.

To make sense of all of this, I like to simplify and explain the Outlander books over coffee to my friends. Essentially the two tracks of the timeline are Collins 20th century life and 18th century Jamie’s world. Exile between the two tracks can occur in several ways: Claire’s abrupt return to her own time following the Jacobites; Jamie’s life as an exiled fugitive attempting to survive in an unforgiving world or attempting to build a new world; Jamie and Claire’s deliberate exile to the colonies in order to escape the Highlands.

Book stops include Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bone, Written in My Own Heart's Blood and the following books in the series. Each title moves along with the time of the story and shifts the stakes for the characters' exile in terms of time, land and family. The shifting of these stakes makes for a very engaging and long saga.

For some reason, I get very obsessed with timelines, so after making this map I just wanted to link to the same information laid out in a linear form for reference and easier reading of the same information about Outlander exile.

This is mapped out over the first three books of the series: Outlander, where Claire, a 1940s nurse, time travels to 1743 and meets Jamie, her first massive forced separation from her original time stream; Voyager, where, after the Jacobite wars have ended, Claire is forced back to the 1940s where she raises Brianna a son that she has with Jamie, exiled from Jamie for twenty odd years.

This brings us to their reunion in the long middle section of the series, Voyager through The Fiery Cross. In these books Claire and Jamie return to 18th century Scotland as fugitives and later as exiles to North Carolina, where they struggle to build a life in a foreign land. The years of exile are told in A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bone and Written in My Own Heart's Blood. As with all exiles, the novel describes not only their physical separation from home but also their temporal, emotional and cultural exile. The way the years of separation play out is heart wrenching and that is why I keep coming back to these books again and again.

I have graphed out two timelines (books published vs. the characters in the book are) but what is most important to note is the ‘exile’ scenes. Which is: first, Outlander. The book that starts it all (1940s/1740s).

For a brief summary, ‘Outlander’ is when Claire first travels back in time to the 1940s but is sent back to the 1740s, a forced exile, and then returns to the 1940s in ‘Outlander’ and builds a life there while her daughter Brianna is left in the 1940s and grows up in the 20th century in ‘Dragonfly in Amber’. The long wait for Claire and Jamie’s reunion continues until ‘Voyager’ where she returns to the 1940s but immediately returns to the 1740s to reunite with Jamie. After that, the couple’s story continues in ‘Drums of Autumn’ as they travel to the New World together.

After that, the core storyline of Jamie and Claire follows them through the settling of a new town and the resulting legal problems as well as their journey through the Revolutionary War in a number of books (The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bone, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood). But in terms of the pattern of exile (separations in time or place) of the main characters, the story holds true to form: separation, survival, reunion, new exile. Very complex and totally worth reading again and again.