Books by Horatio Alger

From the author's preface to this biographical account of the life of one of the nation's foremost orators, Daniel Webster: "It seems to me eminently fitting that the leading incidents in the life of our great countryman, his struggles for an education, the steps by which he rose to professional and political distinction, should be made familiar to American boys." Horatio Alger, Jr. (1834 - 1899) was an author who lived among and for boys and himself remained a boy in heart and association till death. 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.

Ragged Dick; or, Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks is arguably the best known of Horatio Alger's American rags-to-riches stories.