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A Cousin's Conspiracy

Pages: 197

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About this book

Horatio Alger Jr. wrote A Cousin's Conspiracy late in his career, and it has all the comfortable Alger ingredients. A young man, an inheritance, a scheming relative who tries to take what isn't his, and a slow vindication arrived at through honest work and lucky chance.

The protagonist is the kind of polite, hardworking, unflashy boy Alger always wrote. The cousin is the schemer. The reader knows from the first chapter how it has to end. The pleasure, if you find pleasure in Alger, is in the path.

The writing is plain, the dialogue is mannered to a modern ear, and the moral framing is on the surface rather than buried.

For scholars of Gilded Age popular fiction or readers who already enjoy Alger's other books, this fits the catalog. As an introduction to him, Ragged Dick is still the better starting point.

About the author

Horatio Alger

Horatio Alger Jr. was an American author who wrote young adult novels about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to middle-class security and comfort through good works. His writings were characterized by the "rags-to-riches" narrative, which had a formative effect on the United States from 1868 through to his death in 1899.