|
Horatio Alger was the son of a Unitarian minister who
graduated from Harvard Divinity School before becoming an occasional
school teacher and newspaper correspondent for the Boston Transcript
and the New York Sun.
After working as a European correspondent for the New York Sun
for several years, Alger returned to the United States in 1864 to serve as
a Unitarian Minister. But, Alger's career in the clergy was ended after
little more than a year by an accusation that he had engaged in "an unnatural
act of sexual perversion" with one or more of the
boys of his congregation. It was then that he moved to New York City to
resume work as a reporter for the Sun. There he began to spend some
time at a boarding house for homeless boys that was located on the upper
floors of the building that housed the Sun, and worked to promote
public support to provide shelter to homeless children. There he learned of
the hardship in the lives of poor immigrants, and began to write optimistic
stories of heroes who would overcome adversity through diligent effort,
perseverance, honesty, thrift, and cheerfulness if they were lucky enough
to find an elder mentor who would help them to find a suitable situation
and advise them in their careers.
Alger was eventually credited with the creation of at least 134 novels,
and possibly as many as 500; the exact number is not known since Alger
used several pseudonyms for publication of his work.
Among those who admired Alger's work was Edward Stratemeyer, the founder
of the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Toward the end of
his life, Horatio Alger employed Edward Stratemeyer as a ghostwriter to finish
Out for Business, Alger's last novel. When Horatio Alger died in
1899 of pneumonia, resulting from a chronic heart condition, Stratemeyer
had already completed the commission in December of 1898, and then continued
to author new novels, from 1899 to 1908, using the name of Horatio Alger,
Junior as a pseudonym.
Among the most popular works of Horatio Alger are the Ragged Dick
series, beginning in 1868, the Luck and Pluck series, first printed
in 1869 and the Tattered Tom series which first appeared in 1871. His
later works were less successful, so that, by the mid 1880s, Alger was living
in boarding houses in New York City and making frequent visits to his sister
in New England to find some relief from the air pollution that sorely
affected the now middle-aged author who had suffered from respiratory
ailments since his childhood. By 1896 he had permanently given up his room
on the city's 34th street to live with his sister, where he died in July of
1899.
Frank's Campaign (1864)
Frank's Campaign, or the Farm and the Camp was Alger's first
novel written for the youth market. It is the tale of a boy who comes
to adulthood during the years of the American Civil War.
Mr. Alger was drafted for the war (New York state had a draft), but was
rejected for combat duty when he failed the medical examination (he was
short and asthmatic). Yet he maintained regular correspondence with at
least one of his former students (Joseph Deam) who was serving in the
Union Army throughout the war. This volume was published at about the
same time that Horatio Alger began his short career in the clergy.
Frank's Campaign
by Horatio Alger |
Size: 192 KB |
|
Paul Prescott's Charge (1865)
A boy becomes an orphan with the death of his father; is given over to
cruel masters at the county poor house; escapes and runs away to the big city.
Paul Prescott's Charge
by Horatio Alger |
Size: 184 KB |
|
Ragged Dick (1868)
The hero of this story is an orphan named Richard Hunter, a bootblack
who rises, through good fortune and opportunism, to become a clerk in the
office of a successful businessman.
Ragged Dick
by Horatio Alger |
Size: 148 KB |
|
You can find another biography of Horatio Alger and lists of his books
and the publishers who printed them at The Horatio Alger Society.
These ebooks are formatted for the
eReader.
You can get a free copy of the eReader
here.
The eReader was formerly known as the
PalmReader.
| 
