The Coming Wave

The Coming Wave is one of Oliver Optic’s many novels for boys, working in the nautical adventure territory that the author used across multiple connected series. The wave of the title points to the nautical setting that the novel is built around, with the various sailing adventures and maritime situations providing the framework for the standard moral and economic uplift plot that 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. His total output runs into more than a hundred novels. For scholars of nineteenth century American children’s literature, of the dime novel and story paper traditions, or of the wider print culture that shaped American boyhood in the post Civil War decades, Optic’s work is essential. Many of his books are now in the public domain.