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Luck and Pluck #4
Strive and Succeed
Horatio Alger, Jr. (1832-1899) was a 19th-century American author of approximately 135 dime novels. Many of his works are rags-to-riches stories of down-and-out boys who achieve success through hard work and moral virtue.
- GenresFiction
168 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1872
About the author
Horatio Alger Jr.
542 books98 followersHoratio 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 20, 2015
Occasionally in his earlier books Alger would forget he was writing by formula, and get distracted by whatever topics he would rather be writing about.
Strive and Succeed is ostensibly the story of a boy investigating whether the mine shares he inherited are worthless or not, but the investigation takes like five pages -- the climactic infiltration of the mine is dismissed by a bored narrator with the words, "We do not propose to accompany Walter to the mines; it is sufficient to say...." Instead, we get an account of Walter learning to excel as a school teacher by using his boxing skills to whip unruly students (!). Alger keeps gloating that Walter had to strive to be a good teacher, and so he succeeded, but of course his teaching skills are a non sequitur: he gives up teaching as soon as those mining shares get cashed in.
The book is padded out by more parody than is Alger's usual, here at the expense of 1. students who are bad at Latin, 2. school board members who are bad at geography, and 3. "poetesses" who are bad a poetry. Also about half the book is taken up with the main character's crooked cousin, who is dishonest but by no means shiftless, and who indeed strives, but who is too gullible to succeed.
Strive and Succeed is ostensibly the story of a boy investigating whether the mine shares he inherited are worthless or not, but the investigation takes like five pages -- the climactic infiltration of the mine is dismissed by a bored narrator with the words, "We do not propose to accompany Walter to the mines; it is sufficient to say...." Instead, we get an account of Walter learning to excel as a school teacher by using his boxing skills to whip unruly students (!). Alger keeps gloating that Walter had to strive to be a good teacher, and so he succeeded, but of course his teaching skills are a non sequitur: he gives up teaching as soon as those mining shares get cashed in.
The book is padded out by more parody than is Alger's usual, here at the expense of 1. students who are bad at Latin, 2. school board members who are bad at geography, and 3. "poetesses" who are bad a poetry. Also about half the book is taken up with the main character's crooked cousin, who is dishonest but by no means shiftless, and who indeed strives, but who is too gullible to succeed.
June 25, 2017
There is admittedly not a lot of reason to be reading Horatio Alger for fun in the twenty-first century, but I've decided to get involved again as a volunteer for Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders, an organization that works to convert public-domain books to ebook format. One of the projects they need help with is having volunteers do a full read through a near-finalized ebook, looking for any last errors that weren't caught in the previous proofreading and formatting steps. I decided a short children's book was something I could manage, and that's how I ended up reading Strive and Succeed.
Alger's writing is very formulaic - his novels are always about a young boy who escapes poverty through hard work, and are intended to be didactic more than literary. In Strive and Succeed, an orphaned teenager from New York state goes to Wisconsin to investigate whether some shares his father owned in a mine there were worth more money than the owner of the mine was trying to buy them back for. He assumes a false name and takes a teaching job to have income while he tries to learn more about the mine. He impresses most of the students with his intelligence and good spirits, and wins over the class troublemaker by besting him in a boxing match(!). Halfway through the book, we inexplicably jump to New York City to learn about the adventures of a distant cousin who is also trying to make it on his own, but he gets his start by stealing money from his father and is soon parted with all of it by being wildly gullible. The two stories don't seem to have anything to do with each other until the two cousins' paths cross in the very final pages of the book, and the cousin seems to be there only as a cautionary tale of what happens if you try to take the easy way out instead of relying on your wits and boxing prowess.
I actually did enjoy the classroom scenes, where the young teacher had to prove himself to his new students, but there isn't much here to recommend to a twenty-first century reader.
Alger's writing is very formulaic - his novels are always about a young boy who escapes poverty through hard work, and are intended to be didactic more than literary. In Strive and Succeed, an orphaned teenager from New York state goes to Wisconsin to investigate whether some shares his father owned in a mine there were worth more money than the owner of the mine was trying to buy them back for. He assumes a false name and takes a teaching job to have income while he tries to learn more about the mine. He impresses most of the students with his intelligence and good spirits, and wins over the class troublemaker by besting him in a boxing match(!). Halfway through the book, we inexplicably jump to New York City to learn about the adventures of a distant cousin who is also trying to make it on his own, but he gets his start by stealing money from his father and is soon parted with all of it by being wildly gullible. The two stories don't seem to have anything to do with each other until the two cousins' paths cross in the very final pages of the book, and the cousin seems to be there only as a cautionary tale of what happens if you try to take the easy way out instead of relying on your wits and boxing prowess.
I actually did enjoy the classroom scenes, where the young teacher had to prove himself to his new students, but there isn't much here to recommend to a twenty-first century reader.
October 6, 2020
I read it for my Master's. Otherwise, I would not have recommended it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews