Bob Burton

by Horatio Alger Jr.

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1888

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Christy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bob Burton and his widowed mother are in the clutches of the evil Mr. Wolverton, who thinks he can force the mother to marry him by threatening to foreclose the mortgage he holds on their farm. (If this sounds like a melodrama, it is.) Meanwhile, Bob sets off down the Mississippi in a boat with his wheat harvest, taking it to market, and his colored friend Clip goes along to help him out. The boat is stolen, but Bob has the police ready for the thieves when they land. They also help free a little girl who has been kidnapped, and they collect a handsome reward, which allows them to pay off the mortgage back home and save the farm. It all wraps up nicely, which a Horatio Alger story is supposed to do.

[Dianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

An actual 'Horatio Alger story'! Found this gem at the resale shop and true to form,
a melodramatic (it would make a great silent film) tale with dastardly villans
innocent country boys and well some pretty un-pc narratives and language for now,
not for 1888. A simple story where the good guy comes out on top, pretty neat.