Ragged Dick
Ragged Dick; or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-blacks
Written by Horatio Alger, Jr.
Philadelphia, PA, Henry T. Coates, 1895
5.6" x 7.7"
Kerlan Collection, Children's Literature Research Collections
University of Minnesota Libraries
Alger sealed his reputation in 1868 with this, his fourth juvenile novel, an aspirational tale of an honest New York City bootblack's rise from poverty to respectability. Alger's vast output of formula fiction for boys defined the American dream for generations of young people, among them a New Jersey tobacconist's son named Edward Stratemeyer, who enthusiastically plowed through Alger's storybooks as a youth and went on to become the author's ghostwriter and unofficial successor.
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