Dikes and Ditches

Dikes and Ditches is one of Oliver Optic’s many travel adventure novels for boys, working in the European travel territory and with the dikes and ditches title pointing directly to the Dutch landscape and culture that the novel develops around. The Netherlands with its famous dike system and its extensive canal and ditch network was one of the recurring European destinations in nineteenth century American travel writing, with the unique landscape and the wider Dutch culture providing material that nineteenth century American writers found particularly interesting.

The educational dimension of Optic’s travel fiction was significant. Young readers absorbed substantial geographic, cultural, and historical information through his adventure plots, with the Dutch material in this novel providing the kind of access to European culture that most American boys would not encounter directly.

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