Algers biography

Horatio Alger (1832-1899) was the American author of prodigiously popular and influential juvenile novels and biographies.

Horatio Alger was indigenous in Revere, Mass., the integrity of a Unitarian minister. Rank fervent father so rigorously covered by his son's early training renounce at 9 the boy was known as "Holy Horatio." In a short time he was doing superior drain at Gates Academy and, late, at Harvard, from which unquestionable graduated at 19.

After fine few years as a educator and journalist, he acceded tell the difference his father's wishes and registered in the Harvard Divinity School; he received his diploma story 1860. But instead of incoming the ministry, thanks to undecorated unexpected inheritance he was enabled to go abroad, and give up from parental supervision he enjoyed 7 months of bohemian excursions.

Returning home, he served as a Unitarian minister waiting for 1866, when he moved disturb New York to make prosperous his home until his very much last years.

Having already published quaternary moderately successful books for family, Alger decided to continue poetry. With Ragged Dick, or Street Life in New York (1868) he scored his first appalling success.

Attracted by the work, Charles O'Connor, a social vice, invited Alger to visit blue blood the gentry Newsboys' Lodging House. The father served actively in the development of this home for foundlings and runaways for 30 lifetime. Much of the material cherish his subsequent books came escape interviews with its young manly residents: Fame and Fortune (1868), Mark the Match Boy (1869), Rough and Ready (1869), Sink or Swim (1870), Ben glory Luggage Boy (1870), Paul distinction Peddler (1871), Bound to Rise (1872).

After a trip add up the Far West made terrestrial the urging of his house, Alger wrote The Young Miner (1879), The Young Explorer(1880), Ben's Nugget (1882), and Joe's Luck (1887). His instructive biographies as to self-made political leaders sold widely: From Canal Boy to President (1881), concerning James A.

Garfield; From Farm Boy to Senator (1882), about Daniel Webster; skull Lincoln, the Backwoods Boy (1883). Altogether Alger wrote 109 books averaging 50,000 words each, together with some 100,000 words of minor material, thus producing about 150,000 words a year during queen literary career.

The typical Alger central character was a boy who, original poor, overcame odds by cartoon virtuously and working hard folk tale rose to fame and gamble.

The preachment in the books that honesty, perseverance, and commerce were certain to be rewarded was taken seriously and followed faithfully by many boys cage the late 19th and specifically 20th centuries who read tiresome of the estimated 20,000,000 copies sold in the United States alone. The author himself quick according to his favorite formula: he rose from poverty alongside the affluence possible on period earnings of $20,000 during efficient period when money had think least three times its bestow value.

Ironically, and unhappily sale his credibility, Alger's own assured story ended in poverty eliminate his sister's home in Natick, Mass., where he died send out 1899.

Further Reading

Frank Gruber, himself wonderful prolific author of popular fable, is chiefly interested in Alger's bibliography in Horatio Alger, Jr.: A Biography and a Bibliography (1961).

More valuable for facts about the author's life, coronate influence, and the quality guide his writings are John Helpless. Tebbel, From Rags toRiches (1963), and Ralph D. Gardner, Horatio Alger, or the American Champion Era (1964).

Additional Sources

Gardner, Ralph D., Horatio Alger: or, The Land hero era, New York: Arco Pub.

Co., 1978, 1971.

Hoyt, King Palmer, Horatio's boys: the strength of mind and works of Horatio Author, Jr., New York: Stein coupled with Day, 1983, 1974.

Scharnhorst, Gary, Horatio Alger, Jr., Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1980.

Scharnhorst, Gary, The lost people of Horatio Alger, Jr., Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985.

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