Ragged Dick

Hildegard Hoeller is Professor of English at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. She is the author of Edith Wharton's Dialogue with Realism and Sentimental Fiction and co-author, with Rebecca Brittenheim, of Key Words for Academic Writers. Her essays on nineteenth and early-twentieth century American literature have appeared in many journals, among them American Literature, Studies in American Fiction, and American Literary Realism.

• Ragged Dick; or, Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks is arguably the best known of Horatio Alger’s American rags-to-riches stories. It is canonical as a cultural text, rather than a purely literary one, as this Norton Critical Edition reflects. An extensive “Contexts” section includes maps, photographs, and documents showing how and why Alger used the backdrop of New York City to highlight problems of urban poverty, immigration, and child labor in mid-nineteenth century America.“Criticism” is thematically organized around contemporary reviews and responses, the heated public debate about whether Alger should be available in American public libraries, parodies of and related responses to Alger, and four recent critical essays by Mary Wroth Walsh, Glenn Hendler, Michael Moon, and Hildegard Hoeller.