Sink or Swim, Or, Harry Raymond's Resolve

Luck and Pluck #2

by Horatio Alger Jr.

First published in 1870 by Loring, Boston.

182 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1870

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

[Steve Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found a moldy, worm eaten copy of this at a flea market and bought it for a nickel. It appeared to be an early 20th century reprint if this 1870 work. The prose was delightfully stilted and corny, with the characters speaking without contractions and in perfectly pear shaped English.

Alger’s early books often involved a young, poor, morally upright boy who overcomes adversity and makes good. His tales were “rags to riches” stories.

In this one the hero Harry is bamboozled and wronged by an evil man, but Harry prevails given he strikes a favorable impression among those decent people he encounters. They all generously help him and he proves worthy of their aid. He prevails at the end.

The message Alger gave was that if you’re upright and decent and hard working you’ll be a success in life. But goodness, young Harry has a tremendous amount of luck come his way as well. Alger doesn’t define this as supernatural intervention, which I thought strange. Without it, poor Harry would have been crushed, capable as he was.

I might read another one of these some day. It was sort of fun. Hokey, but fun.