Rough and Ready: Life Among the New York Newsboys

Ragged Dick #4

by Horatio Alger Jr.

Book #4 in the Ragged Dick series, and another exciting story. Rufus (or "Rough & Ready" as his street name), an entrepreneurial newsboy, escapes with his younger sister from an abusive, drunken step-father, and vows to set up a better life for them even though this step-father does not let it happen so easily. Exciting stuff, and as always, great lessons learned, both morally and fiscally. (https: //www.travis.media/books-read-and-cours...)

Included in this Illustrated Edition of the 1869 version of "Rough and Ready" are all four original illustrations, rejuvenated, and 10 additional, iconic New York City illustrations that are unique to this edition of the book.

236 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1869

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

[Hal Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Readers of Alger must suspend their disbelief on a regular basis, but the one thing I have found most unbelievable in any Alger book, and which compromised my enjoyment of this one, is the idea that New York street urchins would nickname one of their own "Rough and Ready."

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skipped to #4 as the library didn't have 2 or 3. I like the stories and found it interesting, but by the end I was ready for it to be over, the novelty wore off.

[[ J o ]]

Read the first book in the Ragged Dick series, Ragged Dick. 1 Star; therefore will not be continuing with the series.