All Aboard

All Aboard is one of Oliver Optic’s many novels for boys, with the all aboard call pointing to the kind of departure that the central plot is built around. The phrase is used both in nautical and in railroad contexts in nineteenth century American transportation, and the novel develops around the journey that the all aboard call introduces. The standard moral and adventure structure of the wider Optic catalogue is framed within the journey setting.

Oliver Optic was the pen name of William Taylor Adams, a Massachusetts writer who became one of the most prolific producers of boys’ fiction in mid to late nineteenth century America with more than a hundred novels.

For scholars of nineteenth century American children’s literature or of the wider career of Oliver Optic, the various novels in his catalogue are essential. Many are now in the public domain.