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Thousands of copies sold out within weeks, and the novel was republished in August 1868. It was the first in a six-volume Ragged Dick series (1: Ragged Dick 2: Fame and Fortune 3: Mark, the Match Boy 4: Rough and Ready 5: Ben, the Luggage Boy 6: Rufus and Rose). The book was Alger's best-selling work and remained in print for forty years. [11]
Rags to riches (also rags-to-riches) refers to any situation in which a person rises from poverty to wealth, and in some cases from absolute obscurity to heights of fame, fortune and celebrity—sometimes instantly. This is a common archetype in literature and popular culture, such as the writings of Horatio Alger, Jr.
As a satire of the Horatio Alger myth of success, the novel is evocative of Voltaire’s Candide, which satirized the philosophical optimism of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Alexander Pope. Pitkin is a typical ‘Schlemiel’, stumbling from one situation to the next; he gets robbed, cheated, unjustly arrested, frequently beaten and exploited.
Horatio Alger Jr. (/ ˈ æ l dʒ ər /; January 13, 1832 – July 18, 1899) was an American author who wrote young adult novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to middle-class security and comfort through good works.
A New York City bootblack rises to middle class respectability through hard work, honesty, and determination. Alger's all-time bestseller. Online at Gutenberg: Fame and Fortune; or, The Progress of Richard Hunter: 1868 Juvenile novel. First serialized in twelve installments in Student and Schoolmate. Novelization published by Loring.
SHINE! is a musical based on characters and situations found in the works of Horatio Alger, particularly 1868 novel Ragged Dick and Silas Snobden's Office Boy, [1] respectively Alger's first best-seller and the one first printed in book form eighty years after it was first serialized in Argosy. Its plot and characters focus on Alger's pervasive ...
Gatsby contrasts with Ben Franklin and the characters in Horatio Alger Jr. novels, as successful 'self-made men'. His story serves as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream where "an unhappy fate is inevitable for the poor and striving individual, and the rich are allowed to continue without penalty their careless treatment of others ...
Growing up, Stratemeyer read the works of Horatio Alger and William T. Adams, writers who penned rags-to-riches tales of the hardworking young American, which greatly influenced him. [ 6 ] As a teenager, Stratemeyer operated his own printing press in the basement of his father's tobacco shop, distributing flyers and pamphlets among his friends ...