Jr Horatio Alger: 203 books

If youve ever used the phrase rags to riches, you owe that to Horatio Alger, Jr. (1832-1899), who popularized the idea through his fictional writings that also served as a theme for the way America viewed itself as a country. Algers works about poor boys rising to better living conditions through hard...

The Young Circus Rider is the first in Alger's Atlantic Series. In the Preface, he notes that having just completed the Pacific series, the Atlantic Series is set nearer his home. Of course, most of the characters in his books lived in New York City. Robert Rudd was only nine and wandering the country...

Horatio Alger, Jr., an author who lived among and for boys and himself remained a boy in heart and association till death, was born at Revere, Mass., January 13, 1834. He was the son of a clergyman; was graduated at Harvard College in 1852, and at its Divinity School in 1860; and was pastor of the...

Jack's Ward, published first in book form in 1875 is the second volume in Alger's Brave and Bold Series. It tells the story of an impoverished family discovers a child on their doorstep and undertakes to raise the infant. Set in New York City, it is full to the brim of adventure, kidnapping, phony...

In Brave and Bold, our hero, Robert Rushton, is poor, but honest, forthright, and resolute. His father has, apparently, drowned at sea and, unbeknownst to Robert or his mother, has deposited a fortune—$5,000—with a neer-do-well factory superintendent, and father of a snobbish son—a thorn in...

In the title of "Struggling Upward" the reader gains a sense of the type of story that he is in store for. As is common with the work of Horatio Alger Jr., "Struggling Upward" is the story of a young man's attempts to rise himself up from his bootstraps and make something of himself in this world. In...

Paul Hoffman is a fourteen-year-old young man who sells "prize packages." An elementary gambling game, he sells envelopes that have either candy or money in them; although the odds are poor, the price to play is cheap, and he performs well. Paul is a second generation American, whose late...

Facing the World, a classic collection of adventures, narrates the story of a boy who flees away from a cruel guardian and is fortunate enough to find a loyal friend. Together they journey by sea far and wide. Alger has beautifully captured life, and its various aspects like strife, success in the...

Our story starts off with a bang: During the deathbed confession of his caregiver, young Ernest learns that he has been cheated of a large inheritance, and circumstances later lead him to confront the deceitful relative. Like many of the wonderful Alger stories, honesty, hard work, education and persistence...

Rufus and Rose is last of six books in the Ragged Dick series Alger wrote about the life of struggling boys in New York City, a place that had to be pretty scary at the end of the 19th century. "Newsboys," sold newspapers one at a time on the streets, and "boot blacks" shined the...

Fame and Fortune is the second volume in Alger's "Ragged Dick Series." Ragged Dick is now known as Richard Hunter, and he and his friend Henry Fosdick move into a new, slightly more expensive boarding house. After securing their room and moving their belongings from their old dwelling, Richard...

This 1875 novel is the eighth and last in Alger's "Luck and Pluck" series. Here, Herbert Carter works hard to help his mother, the widow of an inventor, make ends meet, but the ruthless man who holds their mortgage on their house and his snobbish son want to oust the pair, and are close...

Having been stranded on and rescued from a deserted island due to a shipwreck, Harry Vane and Jack Pendleton, decide to stay in Australia, even though Harry's employer, Professor Hemmenway, has decided to return to America. Harry and Jack decide to try their hand at gold mining, and they're...

In publishing "Ben, the Luggage Boy," Alger said that it is in all essential points a true history, the particulars of the story having been communicated to him by Ben himself. In particular, the circumstances surrounding the boy's running away from home and adopting the life of a street...