Ragged Dick; in The Student and Schoolmate Illustrated Monthly

Boston: Joseph H Allen, 1867. First Edition. 12 vols. in 1. First appearance anywhere, complete in 12 issues of The Student and Schoolmate Illustrated Monthly, vol. XIX no. 1 through vol. XX no. 6 (Jan.–Dec. 1867). The original dozen monthly parts bound by the publisher in their original cloth, preceding the 1868 1st book edition published by Loring, that’s more common than unused treadmills, as well as the uncountable reprints of it, and the hundreds of attempts to replicate it by Alger and others (disciples owe their masters temporary belief, not perpetual captivity). Original cloth, a tiny chip at the spine’s base, the odd few pages toned, but get over it. This is a very good, unrepaired copy of a rare book in original cloth (no copies listed as sold at auction on RBH), and as American as apple pie, but these days, that’d be frozen apple pie, with a slice of processed cheese on top. Ref: Grolier 100 American, no. 75. Ralph Gardner, 445, saying: “Ragged Dick was not the author’s first book, as is widely believed, but it is the story that launched him as an all–time best–selling author.”. You say you like your books important? Ok. Here’s the prototype of all rags to riches novels (the tycoon’s Rocky), and the formula for the American Dream. Alger coyly defines success as more achievement than expectation, implying that the inverse is the definition of failure. So take note of that inverse and veil your prospects. Later in the 19th century Communism emerged as a foil to Capitalism but no one would have ever guessed that the fatal flaw of Communism would be that there wasn’t any money in it.

The most popular novel of its day, then, within a generation, the American dream, as Ragged Dick defined it, became so repeated that its origin was taken for granted (every great river is disapproving of its source). Then it was exported by Hollywood in the greatest exploit of propaganda in the history of the world. Now it has had a resurgence, and the dream’s birthplace is being revisited with newfound admiration by a new generation of readers (legs).