Cast Upon the Breakers

Horatio Alger, Jr.Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.0

Word count: 302K words
Chapters: 31

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Cast Upon the Breakers by Jr. Horatio AlgerAuthor: Alger, Horatio, Jr., 1832-1899,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jan 16, 2006

Editor's review

Cast Upon the Breakers is a coming-of-age novel for young readers by Horatio Alger, following his usual pattern: an ordinary boy suffers a sudden reversal, is thrown into unfamiliar circumstances, and gradually gains a footing through honesty, diligence and resourcefulness. The plot moves briskly, conflict is direct, and characters are clearly good or bad; it carries the marked moral instruction of its time and preserves several sides of nineteenth-century American social life. As a public-domain eBook it is free and easy to obtain and use in class, suitable as an entry to English-language novels and for readers studying American popular fiction and the "self-made" narrative. Note that its treatment of success, class and luck is rather idealized, and some views are distant from contemporary values; read it as a historical text, seeing both the story and the era's imagination behind it.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Young readers and beginners wanting to try an English-language novel
Readers studying American popular fiction and coming-of-age narratives
Teachers who need public-domain English texts for classroom use
Casual readers who like brisk stories with clear good and evil

Not a good fit for

Serious literary readers seeking complex psychology and ambiguous themes
Readers put off by didacticism and idealized endings
Beginners with little English reading experience who need annotated help

Reading tips

Read the first two chapters to grasp the hero's situation and the central conflict, then set your reading pace.
Guess unfamiliar words from context and look them up after finishing a chapter, so the plot isn't interrupted.
After reading, list the key factors behind each of the hero's turns and consider which came from personal effort and which from the era's opportunities.
Read alongside other coming-of-age novels and note how the formula repeats and varies.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable for middle school students reading the English original?

Fairly suitable. Sentence structure is not complex, and the short chapters and fast plot make it easy to keep momentum. But some vocabulary and background belong to nineteenth-century America, so students should read with a dictionary and discuss the book's view of success and its image of class with a teacher or peers afterward.

Are all of Alger's novels the same formula?

His works do share a basic framework: a boy in difficulty improves his lot through character and effort. Character setups and plot turns are quite similar. A single book reads smoothly, but several in a row can feel repetitive. For research, the formula itself can serve as a way into nineteenth-century American popular fiction and ideas of success.

The electronic edition has no notes; will that make reading hard?

The main difficulties come from period background and some old-fashioned expressions, not from obscure grammar. Use an online dictionary for vocabulary; when a place name, occupation or social custom is unclear, note it and look it up later. For classroom use, teachers can prepare a background glossary in advance to lower the barrier.

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About the author

Horatio Alger, Jr. Author · American · 1832–1899

Horatio Alger, Jr. (1832–1899) was an American writer, born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and died in Natick. He is known for his "rags-to-riches" novels, in which poor boys rise through diligence, integrity, and opportunity. His best-known work, Ragged Dick (1868), depicts the street life and struggles of a New York bootblack. The library holds 101 of his works, including Charlie Codman's Cruise, Dan, the Newsboy, and Bound to Rise; most were written for young readers, with brisk plots and an optimistic tone that typically rewards honest effort. These books deeply influenced nineteenth-century American "self-made" culture, making the "Alger hero" a popular symbol of striving. Public information on other details of his life is limited.