On Time

On Time is one of Oliver Optic’s many novels for boys, with the title pointing to the moral concept of punctuality and reliability that the wider Optic catalogue treated as one of the central virtues that young men should be developing. The novel develops the on time framework into the standard rags to respectability plot, with the protagonist’s punctuality and reliability being central to his eventual demonstration of the character that earns him the position the wider Optic catalogue is built around.

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.