ALGER, HORATIO (1834-1899), American writer, born in Revere, Mass., Jan. 13, 1834. He graduated at Harvard col lege in 1852, became a teacher and journalist, and in 1864 a Uni tarian minister. He removed to New York city in 1866, and the experiences gained in his efforts to improve the condition of street boys there are reflected in many of his writings, which include over zoo books, mostly juvenile fiction of which many hundred thousand volumes have been sold. He died in Natick, Mass., 1899.
Besides contributing extensively to newspapers and periodicals, he published Helen Ford (1866) a novel ; Gran'ther Baldwin's Thanks giving, With Other Ballads and Poems (1879) ; the popular "Luck and Pluck," "Ragged Dick," and "Tattered Tom," series. See Herbert R. Mayes, Alger, a Biography Without a Hero (1928) .