Alger, Horatio, Jr.

"Horatio Alger, Jr. (January 13, 1832 - July 18, 1899) was a prolific 19th-century American author, best known for his many formulaic juvenile novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives of middle-class security and comfort through hard work, determination, courage, and honesty. He initially wrote and published for adults, but a friendship with boys' author William Taylor Adams led him to writing for the young. He published for years in Adams's Student and Schoolmate, a children's magazine of moral writings. His lifelong theme of rags to respectability had a