Tattered Tom

Series · 4 books · 1871-1876

By Horatio Alger Jr.

Books in series

Paul the Peddler

1871

"Now, mother, I hope supper is 'most ready, for selling neckties has made me hungry." "Almost ready, Paul." It was a humble meal, but a good one. There were fresh rolls and butter, tea and some cold meat. That was all; but the cloth was clean, and everything looked neat. All did justice to the plain meal, and never thought of envying the thousands who, in their rich uptown mansions, were sitting down at the same hour to elaborate dinners costing more than their entire week's board. -from "Chapter VIII: A Stroke of Luck" It's entirely possibly that the 20th-century concept of "the American dream" would not exist without the cheerfully idealistic novels of Horatio Alger, Jr. Enormous bestsellers in their day, Alger's rags-to-riches tales nurtured the nation's faltering idealism during the economic inequities of the Gilded Age. Paul the Peddler, from 1871, follows the typical Alger format: Paul Hoffman is a poor but industrious 14-year-old who ekes out a living for himself and his mother hawking whatever he can on the desperate streets of New York City... until his hard work and integrity pay of in wealth and comfort. This is a charming work, its hard-bitten romance tempered by its celebration of virtue and strength of character. American writer HORATIO ALGER, JR. (1832-1899) wrote well over 100 novels, among them Ragged Dick; or, Street Life in New York (1867), Sink or Swim (1870), and Tattered Tom; or, The Story of a Street Arab (1871).

Phil, the fiddler;

1872

When beatings from the padrone become unbearable, a twelve-year-old Italian street musician in New York runs away to make his own way in the world.

The Young Outlaw; or, Adrift in the Streets

1875

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, Massachusetts, 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 Unitarian Church at Brewster, Mass., in 1862-66. In the latter year he settled in New York and began drawing public attention to the condition and needs of street boys. He mingled with them, gained their confidence showed a personal concern in their affairs, and stimulated them to honest and useful living. With his first story he won the hearts of all red-blooded boys everywhere, and of the seventy or more that followed over a million copies were sold during the author's lifetime. In his later life he was in appearance a short, stout, bald-headed man, with cordial manners and whimsical views of things that amused all who met him. He died at Natick, Mass., July 18, 1899. Mr. Alger's stories are as popular now as when first published, because they treat of real live boys who were always up and about-just like the boys found everywhere to-day. They are pure in tone and inspiring in influence, and many reforms in the juvenile life of New York may be traced to them.

Sam's Chance and How He Improved It

1876

Sam isn't too much of a goody-two-shoes, like some Horatio Alger heroes. He even tries to rob his roommate. Then he moves to Boston for a new start and decides to try to become respectable. He walks up Tremont street stopping in all the stores looking for work. Sam stumbles into a great job in the usual Alger way and becomes quite successful. Excerpt from Sam's Chance: And How He Improved It Sam's Chance is a sequel to the "Young Outlaw," and is designed to illustrate the gradual steps by which that young man was induced to give up his bad habits, and deserve that prosperity which he finally attains. The writer confesses to have experienced some embarrassment in writing this story. The story writer always has at command expedients by which the frowns of fortune may be turned into sunshine, and this without violating probability, or, at any rate, possibility; for the careers of many of our most eminent and successful men attest that truth is oftentimes stranger than fiction. But to cure a boy of radical faults is almost as difficult in fiction as in real life.

Author

Horatio Alger Jr.

Author · 28 books

Horatio Alger, Jr. (January 13, 1832 – July 18, 1899) was a prolific 19th-century American author, most famous for his novels following the adventures of bootblacks, newsboys, peddlers, buskers, and other impoverished children in their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of respectable middle-class security and comfort. His novels about boys who succeed under the tutelage of older mentors were hugely popular in their day. Born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, the son of a Unitarian minister, Alger entered Harvard University at the age of sixteen. Following graduation, he briefly worked in education before touring Europe for almost a year. He then entered the Harvard Divinity School, and, in 1864, took a position at a Unitarian church in Brewster, Massachusetts. Two years later, he resigned following allegations he had sexual relations with two teenage boys.[1] He retired from the ministry and moved to New York City where he formed an association with the Newsboys Lodging House and other agencies offering aid to impoverished children. His sympathy for the working boys of the city, coupled with the moral values learned at home, were the basis of his many juvenile rags to riches novels illustrating how down-and-out boys might be able to achieve the American Dream of wealth and success through hard work, courage, determination, and concern for others. This widely held view involves Alger's characters achieving extreme wealth and the subsequent remediation of their "old ghosts." Alger is noted as a significant figure in the history of American cultural and social ideals. He died in 1899. The first full-length Alger biography was commissioned in 1927 and published in 1928, and along with many others that borrowed from it later proved to be heavily fictionalized parodies perpetuating hoaxes and made up anecdotes that "would resemble the tell-all scandal biographies of the time."[2] Other biographies followed, sometimes citing the 1928 hoax as fact. In the last decades of the twentieth century a few more reliable biographies were published that attempt to correct the errors and fictionalizations of the past.