Field and Forest

Field and Forest is one of Oliver Optic’s many novels for boys, with the title pointing to the rural and outdoor setting that the central protagonist’s adventures unfold within. The agricultural and woodland environment gives Optic room to develop the kind of nature focused adventure that the genre rewarded, with the standard moral and character development of the wider catalogue framed within the rural 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.