Frank on a Gun-Boat (Illustrated)

***Frank on a Gun-Boat***is the second volume in the Gun-Boat Series. In between Frank Nelson's adventures in the West, he serves in the Union Army during the Civil War. More specifically, he is stationed on the Milwaukee and Ticonderoga, both of which were actual gun-boats used in the war. Among Frank's many adventures are saving the Milwaukee from being overrun by Confederate guerrillas, and dealing with members of his crew whose families are split between loyalty to the Union and the Confederacy. An all-around fast-paced, enjoyable read.

Charles Austin Fosdick (September 6, 1842 August 22, 1915), better known by his nom de plume Harry Castlemon, was a prolific writer of stories and novels intended mainly for young adults. He was born in Randolph, New York, and received a high school diploma from Central High School in Buffalo, New York. He served in the Union Navy from 1862 to 1865, during the American Civil War, acting as the receiver and superintendent of coal for the Mississippi River Squadron. Fosdick had begun to write as a teenager, and drew on his experiences serving in the Navy in such early novels as Frank on a Gunboat (1864) and Frank on the Lower Mississippi (1867). He soon became the most-read author for teens in the post-Civil War era, the golden age of young adult literature.

Fosdick once remarked that: "Young men don't like fine literature. What they want is adventure, and the more of it you can get in two-hundred-fifty pages of manuscript, the better fellow you are." Fosdick served up a lot of adventure in such popular book series as the Gunboat Series, the Rocky Mountain Series, the Roughing It Series, the Sportsman's Club Series, and The Steel Horse, or the Rambles of a Bicycle.

Dettagli