ABSTRACT
The submarine shipwreck loomed large in popular fiction of the early twentieth century. The adaptability of submarines for international intrigue and exotic adventure made them particularly appealing as narrative vehicles for writers of spy thrillers and romances. In the United States, submarines, like airships, were an indispensable location for juvenile adventure series, resulting in titles such as Victor Appleton's Tom Swift and His Submarine Boat, G. Harvey Ralphson's Boy Scouts in a Submarine, Elmer Tracey Barnes's The Motion Picture Comrades Aboard a Submarine, and several instalments of Luis Senarens's Frank Reade Jr. series; Victor G. Durham even created an entire Submarine Boys series. Exceptionally, with an eye to their countrys foreign policy as well as their reader-ship, authors, Harvey Ralphson's and Elmer Tracey Barnes's, portray submarines being used not for destruction but for commercial salvage, scientific discovery, and geographical exploration.
