Living too Fast

Living Too Fast is one of Oliver Optic’s many novels for boys, with the title pointing directly to the kind of moral lesson about excess and intemperance that nineteenth century boys’ fiction often delivered. The protagonist who is living too fast in the title sense will need to learn the wider lesson about moderation, work, and steady progress that the wider Optic catalogue is built around, with the eventual recognition of the wisdom of the slower path providing the moral resolution.

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. His moral fiction often used the negative example to develop the lesson, with characters whose flaws drive the plot toward the recognition of better choices.

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.