Try Again

Try Again is one of Oliver Optic’s many novels for boys, working in the kind of adventure and moral instruction territory that earned the author one of the largest readerships in mid to late nineteenth century American children’s fiction. 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 the period, with a total output running into more than a hundred novels.

The try again title points to one of the recurring themes in Optic’s fiction and in the wider tradition of nineteenth century moral instruction for boys. The protagonist faces a setback, a failure, or a difficult situation that would tempt a less determined young man to give up. The moral lesson is that perseverance, the willingness to try again after failure, is itself one of the most important virtues that the young reader should be developing. The actual plot of the novel typically involves the kind of escalating dangers and last minute deliverances that the genre demanded, with the protagonist’s perseverance through the difficult middle stretch being rewarded in the closing chapters.

Optic’s prose is brisk and his action sequences move at the pace his young readers expected. The moral lessons are delivered through the narrative rather than imposed in lectures. Modern readers should be aware that the period assumptions about race, class, and gender are very much present in Optic’s fiction in ways that have not aged well. His books were so popular in their time that he was eventually censured by the Boston Public Library and other respectable institutions for being too exciting and not sufficiently improving, with critics arguing that his adventure focused stories did not deliver the explicit moral instruction that some other writers of children’s books were considered to provide.

The fact that boys preferred Optic to many of his more decorous competitors is now part of the historical interest of his work. He understood what his audience wanted and gave it to them in language they could read.

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. Try Again is a representative entry and a fair sample of his style. Many of his books are now in the public domain.