Freaks of Fortune

Freaks of Fortune is one of Oliver Optic’s many novels for boys, with the title pointing to the kind of unexpected and dramatic shifts in personal circumstance that nineteenth century boys’ fiction often depicted. The freaks of fortune framing positions the central character within the kind of dramatic ups and downs that the wider rags to respectability tradition required, with the standard moral and character development of the wider Optic catalogue unfolding through the various reversals.

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.