First published serially in 1867 in Joseph H. Allen's Student & Schoolmate, Horatio Alger's phenomenally successful novel Ragged Dick appeared in book form the same year as the first volume of Alcott's Little Women (1868).  Though not Alger's first juvenile story, Ragged Dick's inspiring tale of a young bootblack who raises himself up in the world quickly launched a broader series that would eventually run to 135 volumes, with aggregate sales in the millions.  Interestingly, the Alger stories sold even better after Alger's death in 1899 than they had in the 1860s and 1870s, when publishers produced cheaper and cheaper versions for the paperback market.  (A.K. Loring, his original publisher, had charged $1.25 for the first copies of Ragged Dick; thus Alger's tale didn't technically become a "dime novel" until the early 20th century.)

Some questions you might consider as you're reading Ragged Dick:

• Horatio Alger's stories are usually seen as epitomizing the "rags to riches" tale.  Does Ragged Dick fit this description?  Why or why not?
• How does the narrative voice in Ragged Dick compare to those we have encountered previously?
• What about Dick's "voice" -- particularly his endless joking.  Do you find Dick's sarcasm endearing, or infuriating?  How do you imagine his contemporary readers would have found it?  Why?
• What is the "moral" of this book?  Is there one?
• Do books like Ragged Dick have anything to offer the adult reader?  What?
• The last page of the novel announces a sequel: Fame and Fortune.  What developments in Dick's life story do you think take place in that volume?

Literary and Historical Source Materials for Alger & Ragged Dick:

E-texts:
    --Ragged Dick (with illustrations)
    --or a text-only copy
    --another Ragged Dick e-text (from Wiretap)

Other digitized Alger texts:
    • Struggling Upward (from Wiretap)
    • see also the Horatio Alger Resources page

Here are some covers from recent editions of Ragged Dick (which is often packaged with another Alger tale, since they're so brief).  You can click on each image to see a larger version.  What "stories" do the different covers tell about the book inside?
 

A small batch of Alger web links:

• Horatio Alger Resources (there's much here; this site also has links to information about 19th c. New York)
• Lieberman Collection of American Juvenile Literature (at Princeton: includes lists of Alger books in Firestone)
• "Frequently Asked Questions" about Alger
• The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans
• The Horatio Alger Society
• Horatio Alger's grave

Some dime novel links:

• Dime Novels and Penny Dreadfuls -- Stanford University
• Dime novel collection at the Library of Congress
• A gallery of dime novel covers (from Syracuse University) -- see samples below
• Excerpts from Henry Nash Smith's Virgin Land (1950):
    --ch. 9: "The Western Hero in the Dime Novel"
    --ch. 10: "The Dime Novel Heroine"
• E-text & illustrations for Kit Carson: The Prince of the Gold Hunters (1849), by Charles Averill
• Secondary sources on the study of dime novels
• Street & Smith's Preservation Project at Syracuse University
 

Digital P.T. Barnum Site: The Lost Museum

Sample dime novel covers from the Syracuse University Street & Smith's collection:
(there are many more at the Syracuse site -- see "gallery" link above)
 

Book covers from other Alger series: