Oliver Wiswell [Paperback]

Kenneth Lewis Roberts (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0892724684 | ISBN-13: 978-0892724680 | Publication Date: May 1999

Publisher: New York, Doubleday, Doran

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 836 pages
• Publisher: Down East Books (May 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892724684
• ISBN-13: 978-0892724680
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,517,616 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a tremendous historical novel, September 3, 2001

By 

audrey (white mtns) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Oliver Wiswell (Paperback)

Wow. I wish I could give this book six stars. I wish I could demote every five-star rating I've given to a book or a CD or a DVD so that I could give OLIVER WISWELL a unique five-star rating, thus marking its place as one of the best books I've ever read, period. Reading this book was an epiphany. Having an undergraduate history minor, and having taken courses in historiography, I was used to the idea of reading history while keeping in mind that it was written by the victors and by people with their own agendas; but never has that principle been so real, and so vivid, as in the reading of this book. In all my years of school I never learned so much about the Revolutionary War, never cared so much about the war, and never read a book that made me want to visit New Brunswick, Canada.

The novel begins in April 1775, when the protagonist is ejected from his home by American rebels, and ends in 1783, when the war has ended and he and other Loyalists leave their home country to establish roots in Canada. In between, the author manages to have Oliver plausibly meeting some of the most interesting characters involved (General Howe, John Vardill, John Cruger, etc) and at the scene of many of the war's most interesting events (the Battle of Bunker (Breed's) Hill, the rebels' surrender of New York, the intrigue-ridden courts of Paris and London, the trek to Kentucky by fleeing Tories along Boone's Wilderness Trail, the siege of Ninety Six and Benedict Arnold's campaign in the south, and the Loyalists' post-war settlement in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Gibralter, Bermuda and the Bahamas). Furthermore, we become involved in the personal lives of several main characters: the young Mr. Wiswell, his resourceful and loyal friend Tom Buell, Sally Leighton -- the rebel girl Oliver leaves behind, and the irascible Mrs. Belcher Byles. In the course of the novel we come to have genuine affection for these characters.

I hated for this book to end. I teared up through the last ten pages, more fully comprehending the pain and torment of America's first civil war and more fully appreciating the suffering and loss of people on both sides of this horrible ordeal.

If you are willing to read 800+ pages you will be rewarded not only by a remarkable personal story, but you will undoubtedly know more about the Revolutionary War than you dreamed possible. Kenneth Roberts was a remarkable author.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good historical fiction, January 1, 2002

By 

J. E. Stoebner (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Oliver Wiswell (Paperback)

If you enjoy historical fiction or are interested in early American history, then I would recommend this book, because of its unusual (and neglected) subject matter, and because Roberts is a very fine writer. But for other readers the book would likely be too long.

The title character is a well-educated New Englander who is disgusted with the rabble-rousing politics of Boston agitators like Samuel Adams and John Hancock, and when forced to pick sides when fighting began, chose to side with the crown. He is recruited as a spy / intelligence gatherer and sent on various missions to Long Island, London, Paris, and South Carolina, accompanied by an extraordinarily resourceful and clever jack-of-all-trades named Tom Buell.

The book is essentially a fictional autobiography, covering the entire American Revolution through the perspective of a person actively involved in the events of a tumultuous period. Therefore a long book is necessary. Nor does the action move slowly. But Roberts's dialogue often lapses into long-winded speech-making by the loyalist characters (especially Buell) as they express their reasons for opposing the rebellion, and their frustration with the hardships they experience. The account of Wiswell's mission to London and Paris might well have been omitted, although it provides the reader, through Wiswell, an inside view of the confused workings of the King's government. Without understanding or ever speaking a word of French, Wiswell is deployed to capture diplomatic papers from Ben Franklin, the American plenipotentiary in France. Two of Wiswell's friends from America appear in Paris as extremely implausible fellow spies for the loyalist cause.

Wiswell's adventures in the South, which include a vivid depiction of a fortress siege, are the best part of the book. Incidentally, it is a useful corrective to the Hollywood baloney in The Patriot (the Mel Gibson movie), which had its setting in the southern campaigns of the Revolutionary War.

The author seems to have intended the book mainly to serve a didactic purpose: the illustrate, with fair comprehensiveness, the reasons and extent of loyalist opposition to the Continental Congress. He does this very well, while making clear, through depictions of several incompetent and stubborn English officials - General Howe is targeted especially - how intelligent and respectable Americans could decide that independence from Great Britain had become necessary.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oliver Wiswell, April 1, 2002

By 

J. Lindner (Gem Lake, MN United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Oliver Wiswell (Paperback)

Once again I'm admitting to bias in my review, but this is another solid novel by the premier novelist of the colonial American period. Roberts writes of young Wiswell as he faced the struggle of a world he did not wish to see changed. Wiswell was a Loyalist and suffered much for his beliefs. Too many novelists (and indeed some historians) write off the tribulations of the Loyalists because of so-called "patriotism." But patriotism is not so clearly defined. Wiswell believed he was acting out of patriotism when he made the desicions he did.

This book is another offering from a writer who can literally place the reader into the pages of his book and keep you there until the last page. The characters of the several books are cross-referenced enough so one gets the impression of a larger historical community. This allows Roberts to maintain continuity yet keeps him from writing in a historical vacuum. The reader will follow Wiswell's journey from New England to the southern colonies and ultimately beyond the borders of the United States.

With any luck, this and the rest of Roberts' books will never go out of print.