Now or Never

Now or Never is one of Oliver Optic’s many novels for boys, with the title pointing to the kind of decisive moment in the central character’s life that the wider novel works through. The now or never framing suggests a particular crisis point at which the protagonist must make a defining choice, with the standard moral and character development of the wider Optic catalogue unfolding around that central decision.

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.