Ragged Dick, or, Street life in New York with boot blacks - Horatio Alger

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.