Ready About

Ready About is one of Oliver Optic’s many novels for boys in his nautical adventure series. The ready about command is a sailing term used when a vessel is about to change tack, with the title pointing to the kind of nautical setting that the novel develops around. The young protagonist serves aboard a vessel where the various sailing maneuvers, dangers, and adventures provide the framework for the standard moral and character development of the wider Optic catalogue.

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.