Four Young Explorers; Or, Sight-Seeing in the Tropics by Oliver Optic (best romantic novels to read .TXT) 📗
- Author: Oliver Optic
Book online «Four Young Explorers; Or, Sight-Seeing in the Tropics by Oliver Optic (best romantic novels to read .TXT) 📗». Author Oliver Optic
"It is full of spirit and adventure, and presents a plucky hero who was willing to 'bide his time,' no matter how great the expectations that he indulged in from his uncle's vast wealth, which he did not in the least covet.... He was left a poor orphan in Ohio at seventeen years of age, and soon after heard of a rich uncle, who lived near Boston. He sets off on the long journey to Boston, finds his uncle, an eccentric old man, is hospitably received by him, but seeks employment in a humble way, and proves that he is a persevering and plucky young man."—Boston Home Journal.
This book is full of interesting information upon the plant life of the seashore, and the life of marine animals; but it is also a bright and readable story, with all the hints of character and the vicissitudes of human life, in depicting which the author is an acknowledged master.
Every new story which Mr. Trowbridge begins is followed through successive chapters by thousands who have read and re-read many times his preceding tales. One of his greatest charms is his absolute truthfulness. He does not depict little saints, or incorrigible rascals, but just boys. This same fidelity to nature is seen in his latest book, "The Scarlet Tanager, and Other Bipeds." There is enough adventure in this tale to commend it to the liveliest reader, and all the lessons it teaches are wholesome.
[xxi]
There were some schoolboys who had turned housebreakers, and among their plunder was a silver medal that had been given to one John Harrison by the Humane Society for rescuing from drowning a certain Benton Barry. Now Benton Barry was one of the wretched housebreakers. This is the summary of the opening chapter. The story is intensely interesting in its serious as well as its humorous parts.
"This is a book after the typical boy's own heart. Its hero is a plucky young fellow, who, seeing no chance for himself at home, determines to make his own way in the world.... He sets out accordingly, trudges to the far West, and finds the road to fortune an unpleasantly rough one."—Philadelphia Inquirer.
"We class this as one of the best stories for boys we ever read. The tone is perfectly healthy, and the interest is kept up to the end."—Boston Home Journal.
This story is of a lad, who, though not guilty of any bad action, had been an eye-witness of the conduct of his comrades, and felt "Bound in Honor" not to tell.
"The glimpses we get of New England character are free from any distortion, and their humorous phases are always entertaining. Mr. Trowbridge's brilliant descriptive faculty is shown to great advantage in the opening chapter of the book by a vivid picture of a village fire, and is manifested elsewhere with equally telling effect."—Boston Courier.
"A boy's story which will be read with avidity, as it ought to be, it is so brightly and frankly written, and with such evident knowledge of the temperaments and habits, the friendships and enmities of schoolboys."—New York Mail.
"This is a capital story for boys. Trowbridge never tells a story poorly. It teaches honesty, integrity, and friendship, and how best they can be promoted. It shows the danger of hasty judgment and circumstantial evidence; that right-doing pays, and dishonesty never."—Chicago Inter-Ocean.
"This book will help to neutralize the ill effects of any poison which children may have swallowed in the way of sham-adventurous stories and wildly fictitious tales. 'The Jolly Rover' runs away from home, and meets life as it is, till he is glad enough to seek again his father's house. Mr. Trowbridge has the power of making an instructive story absorbing in its interest, and of covering a moral so that it is easy to take."—Christian Intelligencer.
"Young Joe," who lived at Bass Cove, where he shot wild ducks, took some to town for sale, and attracted the attention of a portly gentleman fond of shooting. This gentleman went duck shooting with Joe, and their adventures were more amusing to the boy than to the amateur sportsman.
There are thirteen other short stories in the book which will be sure to please the young folks.
"The Vagabonds" are a strolling fiddler and his dog. The fiddler has been ruined by drink, and his monologue is one of the most pathetic and effective pieces in our literature.
[xxii]
The hero is the son of a man who from drink got into debt, and, after having given a paper to a creditor authorizing him to keep the son as a security for his claim, ran away, leaving poor Phil a bond slave. The story involves a great many unexpected incidents, some of which are painful, and some comic. Phil manfully works for a year, cancelling his father's debt, and then escapes. The characters are strongly drawn, and the story is absorbingly interesting.
"The Tinkham Brothers" were the devoted sons of an invalid mother. The story tells how they purchased a tide-mill, which afterwards, by the ill-will and obstinacy of neighbors, became a source of much trouble to them. It tells also how, by discretion and the exercise of a peaceable spirit, they at last overcame all difficulties.
"Mr. Trowbridge's humor, his fidelity to nature, and story-telling power lose nothing with years; and he stands at the head of those who are furnishing a literature for the young, clean and sweet in tone, and always of interest and value."—The Continent.
"Mr. Trowbridge has always a purpose in his writings, and this time he has undertaken to show how very near an innocent boy can come to the guilty edge and yet be able by fortunate circumstances to rid himself of all suspicion of evil. There is something winsome about the hero; but he has a singular way of falling into bad luck, although the careful reader will never feel the least disposed to doubt his honesty.... It is the pain and perplexity which impart to the story its intense interest."—Syracuse Standard.
This is the story of a schoolmaster, his trials, disappointments, and final victory. It will recall to many a man his experience in teaching pupils, and in managing their opinionated and self-willed parents. The story has the charm which is always found in Mr. Trowbridge's works.
"Many a teacher could profit by reading of this plucky little schoolmaster."—Journal of Education.
"As for the hero of this story, 'His One Fault' was absent-mindedness. He forgot to lock his uncle's stable door, and the horse was stolen. In seeking to recover the stolen horse, he unintentionally stole another. In trying to restore the wrong horse to his rightful owner, he was himself arrested. After no end of comic and dolorous adventures, he surmounted all his misfortunes by downright pluck and genuine good feeling. It is a noble contribution to juvenile literature."—Woman's Journal.
"Trowbridge's other books have been admirable and deservedly popular, but this one, in our opinion, is the best yet. It is a story at once spirited and touching, with a certain dramatic and artistic quality that appeals to the literary sense as well as to the story-loving appetite. In it Mr. Trowbridge has not lectured or moralized or remonstrated; he has simply shown boys what they are doing when they contemplate hazing. By a good artistic impulse we are not shown the hazing at all; when the story begins, the hazing is already over, and we are introduced immediately to the results. It is an artistic touch also that the boy injured is not hurt because he is a fellow of delicate nerves, but because of his very strength, and the power with which he resisted until overcome by numbers, and subjected to treatment which left him insane. His insanity takes the form of harmless delusion, and the absurdity of his ways and talk enables the author to lighten the sombreness without weakening the moral, in a way that ought to win all boys to his side."—The Critic.
[xxiii]
"If to make children's stories as true to nature as the stories which the masters of fiction write for children of a larger growth be an uncommon achievement, and one that is worthy of wide recognition, that recognition should be given to Mr. J. T. Trowbridge for his many achievements in this difficult walk of literary art. Mr. Trowbridge has a good perception of character, which he draws with skill; he has abundance of invention, which he never abuses; and he has, what so many American writers have not, an easy, graceful style, which can be humorous, or pathetic, or poetic."—R. H. Stoddard in New York Mail.
This book was published in the early fifties by Phillips, Sampson & Co., of which firm Mr. Lee (of Lee and Shepard) was then a member. It was very favorably received, and was followed by other stories,—a long series of them,—still lengthening, and which, it is hoped, may be prolonged indefinitely. Recently a new edition has appeared, and for a preface the author has related with touching simplicity the account of his first experience in authorship.
It is well known that Mr. Trowbridge is primarily a poet. Some beautiful poems of his were printed in the early numbers of the Atlantic Monthly (in company with poems by Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell, and Holmes), and were well received. "At Sea" is a gem that has become classic. The poetic faculty has not been without use to the story-writer. The perception of beauty in nature and in human nature is always evident even in his realistic prose. But his poetic gift never leads him into sentimentality, and his characters are true children of men, with natural faults as well as natural gifts and graces. His stories are intensely human, with a solid basis, and with an instinctive dramatic action. He has never written an uninteresting book.
"The scenes are full of human interest and lifelikeness, and will please many an old reader, as well as the younger folks for whose delectation it is intended. As in all the books of this author the spirit is manly, sincere, and in the best sense moral. There is no 'goody' talk and no cant, but principles of truthfulness, integrity, and self-reliance are quietly inculcated by example. It is safe to say that any boy will be the better for reading books like this."—St. Botolph.
As a novelty, the following acrostic is presented. The praise from the different newspapers is brief, but to the point.
Comments (0)