- Mass Market Paperback: 208 pages
- Publisher: Signet Classics; Reissue edition (Sep 6 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0451529839
- ISBN-13: 978-0451529831
- Product Dimensions: 17.3 x 10.8 x 1.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 68 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #262,571 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Book Description
A plucky street boy who smokes, gambles, and speaks ungrammatically, Dick is also honest and hardworking. A quintessential novel of adventure, romance, and coming-of-age, it is also an exhilarating tale of one boy's metamorphosis from dirty street urchin to gentleman.
About the Author
Horatio Alger, Jr. was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts in 1832, the son of a Unitarian minister. He received a strict upbringing and was educated for a life in the church, graduating from Harvard in 1852.
After leaving Harvard, Alger, to his father's disappointment, took a job as a historian in Middlesex County, Massachusetts and later worked as a teacher at a boys' boarding school in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. He traveled in Europe for a year, and then returned to the United States in 1857 to complete his studies at the Cambridge Divinity School.
In 1864 Alger was ordained a minister at the First Parish Unitarian Church of Brewster on Cape Cod. Sixteen months later, however, he was dismissed from the pulpit after being accused of engaging in homosexual relations with two boys. After his dismissal, Alger began to focus on his writing career, which spanned more than three decades and 110 books. He wrote mainly children's books about boys and girls who rise from rags to riches through hard work and faith in the American dream. His first major success came with the publication of his eighth novel, Ragged Dick in 1868. Other popular novels include Luck and Pluck (1869), Tattered Tom (1871), and Strive and Succeed (1872). Alger also wrote several adult novels, including A Fancy of Her's (first publihsed as The New Schoolma'am in 1877) and The Disagreeable Woman (1895).
Alger, who never married, spent the last decades of his life living at his family home in South Natick, Massachusetts, where he died in 1899.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
HORATIO ALGER, JR., wrote more than one hundred books for boys during the last third of the nineteenth century until his death in 1899. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
HORATIO ALGER, JR., wrote more than one hundred books for boys during the last third of the nineteenth century until his death in 1899. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ragged Dick a timeless piece,
By TOM (New Hampton, NH USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Signet Classics Ragged Dick (Paperback)
"I aint been knookin around these city streets for all my life for nothin," exclaims Ragged Dick, the hero of the novel Ragged Dick, by Horatio Alger Jr. This timeless classic brings the reader into the life of a young boy growing up on the harsh city streets of New York City in the late 1800's. Ragged Dick became an orphan at the age of four and was forced to take care of himself soon after at the age of seven. Dick becomes a boot black so he can earn enough money to take care of himself and this is where the reader begins the story. Ragged Dick turns into a fast paced adventurous novel which will constantly leave the reader asking "what next?" Join the many who have become enthralled by this book and follow the adventures of Ragged Dick and his friends you meet along the way. Learn how Dick, the lovable boot black, turns out. Does he live up to his goal of "livin a s'pectable life" like he always hoped to? Find out, by reading this timeless classic.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ragged Dick... (Our Hero),
By andrew (Manchester, NH United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Signet Classics Ragged Dick (Paperback)
"Ragged Dick," a story about a young, poor, boot-black boy from New York City, is a Classic American novel. Written by Horatio Alger, in the late 1800's, hit upon the most important topic in America at the time; the "American Dream." The "American Dream," being the idea that everyone, from all walks of life, can come to America and be successful, in any way in which they want to, so long as they have hard work and determination to do so. Ragged Dick for filled this "Dream" by making his way up in society, and eventually making a wealthy man of himself.I enjoyed reading "Ragged Dick." The story, though it was short, covered some very important topics of life back in the 1800's. The first was that fact that noone should give up. Through all of the hardships Dick was put through, including the loss of his parents, the mis-fortune of receiving no education, and the fact that he lived on his own for most of his life. Another important topic that was covered, was that hard work pays off. In Dick's case, he worked hard at a boot-black, treated people with respect, and finally caught a break for his hard work, by receiving a high paying job. The kind of people that would enjoy this story would be people of all ages. No matter what age, or what level of education one may be, this story teaches lessons that anyone can benefit from. It doesn't matter if a twelve year old boy, or a fifty year old woman picked up "Ragged Dick," because they will both benefit from what the story speaks about.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good values and good history,
By
This review is from: Signet Classics Ragged Dick (Paperback)
RAGGED DICK is a wonderful example of the late 19th century optimism in between the major depressions that plagued America during those years. I agree that this is an inspirational story for children and early adolescents. The values it imparts--loyalty, work, cooperation, persistence--are certainly ones that we would want our youth exposed to. But it holds something for adults too: and that is a first-hand glimpse of post-Civil War New York City. The struggle of the orphans, the advantages of the privileged class, the thieves, the confidence men, the unforgiving hardness of poverty in the pre-Jacob Riis days are all there. And that's what makes this book a double winner: it has something for the young and something for the older.
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